Miri struggles to resume a normal life with her wife, Leah, who is not herself after returning from a mysterious deep-sea mission.
Miri and Leah have lived a quiet, lovely life of ups and downs together. When Miri is faced with the return of her wife after months spent under the sea, she struggles to understand how much of “her Leah” is left in the shell of a woman that has returned to her. As Miri seeks answers about what happened on the mission, Leah’s health slowly deteriorates in odd and concerning ways. The company Leah worked for is stonewalling her, the doctors are stumped by the strange cravings and mannerisms that Leah has developed, and Miri feels more alone than ever as she remembers how different their life was before the mission. In between running salt-water baths and attending to her wife’s leaky, sheen-covered body, Miri navigates her own internal dilemmas and existential questions. How much of a person needs to remain to still be the person that you knew and loved? How does one properly grieve a person’s loss when said person is still alive? And if you truly love someone, is it okay to arrive at a point where you stop seeking answers and let them go?
The book alternates POVs between Miri and Leah for each chapter, with Miri’s chapters focusing on the time after Leah returned from the mission and Leah’s chapters focusing on her time spent underwater while on the mission. Both characters ruminate about their own isolation, either physical or mental, while also submerging themselves in the nostalgia of ordinary moments in their relationship. Their love is genuine, and their memories are moving- making you smile and laugh at their antics and cry and mourn over their profound losses. The predominant focus on each character’s interiority allows for Julia Armfield to craft eerie metaphors about death, dread, and the sea. She also pairs the graphic body horror in the story with flowery, delicate, and at times tender descriptions that gave the story the same feel as when a children’s lullaby plays in the background of a scene in a horror movie. I liked Armfield’s writing style so much that upon finishing this book, I immediately purchased and read her short story collection, Salt Slow, which I would highly recommend for readers during the spooky season.
I can only describe this book as hauntingly beautiful. It is my favorite book from my 2023 reading list. If you were a fan of the sapphic romance and the pace of the alternating narrators found in This is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone), or you liked the suspense-filled confusion as the Biologist searched for answers in Annihilation (from Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy), this book is for you! 5/5 stars, and I’ll be reading everything Julia Armfield puts out into this world because of how great this book was.
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