“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness,” (Armfield 3).
Miri’s wife Leah was only supposed to be gone for three weeks on a simple deep-sea research mission, but when the mission is delayed and the Centre that employed Leah stops calling with updates, Miri expects the worst. But six months later Leah returns and Miri brings her home, trying to resume their lives. But some of Leah still lives at the bottom of the sea, at whatever happened so many feet below, whatever she saw that she won’t tell Miri about.
I love grief horror! Perhaps an exclamation point is too happy a punctuation mark to use when talking about grief and horror, but I love it I love it I love it!
I’ve heard so many great things about Our Wives Under the Sea and snatched it up when I happened upon it in the library, then proceeded to finish it in twenty-four hours. The book alternates in chapters between Miri and Leah. Miri’s chapters focus on Leah’s return and the adjustment to that as Leah is not the same woman she is returned as she was when she left, sleepwalking and filling the bathtub and sink right to full while Leah’s chapters detail her time on the research mission. Miri and Leah have very distinct voices, and Armfield does some beautiful paralleling of the apartment and submarine. I liked Leah’s chapters a little more, but that’s mostly because her chapters contained the mystery of what happened under the sea while Miri’s focused on her understanding of who Leah was now with the memories of who she was before the mission. In short, Miri’s chapters hurt.
Before I started this book I was certain I understood what this book was about, convinced it was a typical Came Back Wrong Pet Semetary type scenario, and to a degree it is, but at it’s core this book is about love and anticipatory grief. This book made me ache. The writing is so beautiful, the build-up so gradual, that you can’t help but hurt when it all comes together. I’ve never read a book that focuses on anticipatory grief and Armfield wrote about this so masterfully, I’m still hurting!
I didn’t find the book all that scary. It’s definitely eerie and there were a few moments that got me, especially something Leah said when she and Miri go to couple’s therapy that made me shiver. If you have a fear of the deep sea and ocean then this book will scare you, but as someone who’s always loved the water I didn’t find the undersea parts too scary, but you won’t find me in a submarine anytime soon (too many things can go wrong and I always think about this Family Guy clip).
Our Wives Under the Sea is a gorgeous, aching book. This story will chill you if you’ve always been afraid of what lurks below the surface of the water, and will stick with you long after you finish.
Publication: March 3 2022
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
Pages: 228 pages (Hardcover)
Source: Library
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Queer
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤.5
Summary:
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 is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.
Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.
Sarah O'Connor 