"Our Wives Under the Sea"

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Book Club Pick

Pages: 240 Genre: horror, literary fiction

Rating: 4 Stars

Miri's wife, Leah, has finally returned from her deep-sea mission — a trip that took far longer than expected with little to no explanation. It quickly becomes clear, though, that Leah isn't the same as she was when she left, and Miri isn't really sure what to do about it. Leah seems to have brought whatever happened in the ocean back up with her. Although seemingly moving through life together again, Miri can feel Leah slipping away.

This is one of those books that just won't work for everyone. It has a very unique style and a concept that's a little out-there, and while it worked for me, it won't work for others, and that's okay. But I really did love it. It reminded me of the kind of books I'd be told to read and analyze for a literature class — a fascinating mix between The Metamorphosis and The Haunting of Bly Manor, the Mike Flanagan show. If you're someone who enjoys vagueness and uncertainty in your books, you'll like this one. Otherwise, maybe it's not for you.

If you do read this book, go into it expecting to read literary fiction. The deep ocean is scary by nature, but that wasn't enough to justify categorizing this book as horror. In fact, I think that worked against the story. In books that are more conceptual and metaphorical in nature, you can get away with a lack of "correct action" as the universe just needs people to accept that The Weird Thing is real. Horror doesn't have the same allowances, or at least not in the same way. Questions such as "why did Miri do everything EXCEPT get a doctor's opinion" have more legitimacy because it forces Miri into the role of a Dumb Horror Protagonist. However, if you go into the book just accepting that The Weird Thing is real and accepted by the characters in-universe, then you don't need an answer to those questions.

The best part of this book is the amount of questions it leaves you with, but admittedly some of them feel indicative of an underdeveloped story. Plot points would appear and disappear without any follow-through, which would make the intentionally-vague nature of the book come across as just confusing.

That all being said, this book is beautiful. The writing style, while highly stylized, was poetic and proved a real mastery of writing from the author. Our Wives Under the Sea is the perfect example of "learning the rules so you can break them." I'm not sure I can explain it properly, but it really did feel like the literature equivalent of being underwater. The constant water references may be too much to some people, but to me it created an atmosphere of vast uncertainty that really enhanced the reading experience.

The concept was strange and a little confusing and a lot brilliant. I've said it multiple times and I'll say it once more: I loved how vague it was. It wasn't until after I read it that I realized just how many different interpretations there could be, from being highly metaphorical to entirely literal. The sporadic nature of the storytelling helped make the whole thing feel just as disorienting as I image the situation would have been for Miri to be living through.

Both Miri and Leah have chapters from their point of view, and I liked them both for different reasons. Miri felt incredibly realistic. I could feel how out of it she really was, and I enjoyed how that mental state was being portrayed. The details that she would latch onto and the seemingly-randomness of her thoughts painted a good picture of a woman who is both deeply in love and in grief. Leah's chapters, on the other hand, held a lot of the terror. Her story focuses on what happened underwater (although, again, I credit some of that to the fact that the ocean is scary by default). I'm still not totally sure what to make of her section, but it did start to feel suffocating to read, so I suppose it was done well.

I do want to say that the narration felt very similar for both women, but I want to point that out in an entirely neutral way. It was obvious enough to bother me while reading, but now that I've been thinking about the book more, I feel like this can be credited to either amateur writing or a brilliant nod to the true nature of their relationship. Perhaps both.

Our Wives Under the Sea is the type of book that you almost have to let age before deciding how to feel about it. I feel like I'd be able to give a better review after a couple re-reads, and perhaps a whole lecture dedicated to it. But if you want to read a book that will stick with you, for better or worse, I'd definitely suggest giving this a shot.