our wives under the sea by julia armfield

Her own hypochondria (“I fell prey to patterns of terrible thinking, imagined myself crowded with cysts, with cancer”), along with the dread of the heritable condition that killed her mother, mean deterioration looms as large in Miri’s psyche as it does in Leah’s body. “The way that anyone who sneezes more than four times abruptly loses the sympathy of an audience, so it was with me and Leah.” D’you know what I mean The endlessness of that. Her work has been published in Granta, The White Review. Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea 45 likes Like I think, Juna says after a pause, that the thing about losing someone isn’t the loss but the absence of afterwards. Overview A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (NPR, The Washington Post, Lit Hub, The Telegraph, Goodreads, Tor.com, them, and more) A deeply strange and haunting novel in the best possible wayAn impressive and exciting debut novel that may leave you thinking about your own relationships in a new light. “It went on too long and too helplessly,” Miri explains. Julia Armfield is the author of the story collection salt slow and the novel Our Wives Under the Sea. To her wife, Leah’s initial symptoms – bleeding gums, strange sensitivities, lack of appetite – characterise a change that feels almost like betrayal. I don’t think it will be to everyone’s taste (and it’s definitely weird) but I found Our Wives Under the Sea by JuliaArmfield absolutely mesmerising.

Seeking to answer it herself, Miri spends hours on hold to the shadowy “Centre for Marine Enquiry”, which organised the expedition – though as Leah’s ordeal comes into focus, so do the reasons staff might not have felt equipped to explain it over the phone.ĭeprived of natural light and stimulation, tortured by sounds that test her sanity, Leah’s time in the submarine sets off a chain of events she is powerless to halt.

Our wives under the sea by julia armfield