![]() Take Leah’s observation that “things can thrive in unimaginable conditions. ![]() Everything that happens on the surface has symbolic, metaphorical meaning beneath. Gothic elements are knitted throughout (“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness” goes the tantalising first sentence). ![]() It is laid out in five sections, each corresponding to an ocean layer This might be a book about the sea, about depression, illness, grief. Miri, at a loss for what to do, spends hours on the phone trying in vain to reach Leah’s former employer. She rarely eats and is constantly in the bath listening to a sound machine. These women – Miri, and Leah – love one another, but since Leah’s return, silence has wormed “like a spine” into their life together. The book is about – what? A failing relationship, maybe. If it doesn’t appear on numerous prize lists, I’ll eat my hat. ![]() Reprising some of her previous preoccupations (liminal spaces, the proximity between the body and nature, death), Julie Armfield’s debut novel is sharp, atmospheric, dryly funny, sad, distinctive. The prize-winning author of the short story collection Salt Slow brings a tale of two female spouses, one of whom has just returned from a deep-sea mission gone wrong. I have not stopped dreaming of Our Wives Under the Sea since I finished it. ![]()
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