Why did I love this book?
My Goodreads review of this book just says, “Yes yes yes yes yes this is the good stuff,” if you want a sign of my emotional reaction to Our Wives Under the Sea.
This is a gorgeous, compact, spooky, haunting novel about a marriage falling apart, and it came into my life at exactly the right time. Miri’s wife, Leah, is an undersea explorer who vanishes for months under the water without a trace. Finally, she returns—but has all of Leah come back?
I would call this half dark fantasy horror, half contemporary queer literary fiction. Or Mitski meets The Haunting of Hill House. It checked all my boxes, and I whipped through it in two sittings. In other words, “the good stuff.”
7 authors picked Our Wives Under the Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Named as book to look out for in 2022 by Guardian, i-D, Autostraddle, Bustle, Good Housekeeping, Stylist and DAZED.
Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home.
To have the woman she loves back should mean a return…