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A review by kamreadsandrecs
Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The last time I read a horror novel that explored grief, it was John Langan’s The Fisherman’s Wife, which I enjoyed thoroughly and found appropriately spooky. So when this book cropped up in some best-of lists this year, and many of the reviews implied or out right stated this was a horror novel, I decided to give it a shot.
And yes, yes, it IS a horror novel, but not quite in the same way as Langan’s book. No: the horror here is in watching the slow deterioration of a relationship/relationships, something indefinable hanging between everyone that no one can seem to get over or around. And the thing is: it’s neither of their faults. On one hand, how do you explain a profoundly traumatic experience to someone? An experience that has changed you so fundamentally, that it might feel like you’re someone else entirely? And on the other hand, how do you try to understand what your partner is going through in the wake of a traumatizing event? How do you reach out to them, ask them to open up, without accidentally cutting them, or yourself, on the sharp edge of a memory? How do two people deal with the weight of all that? How do you keep a relationship from just…disintegrating?
In broad strokes, that’s what happens in this novel. The story is told via first-person narration with both Miri and Leah as narrators, the chapters alternating between them. On one hand, Miri’s chapters are mostly set in the present, drifting back and forth to explore her past as it relates to the present of her and the just-returned Leah. It is in Miri’s chapters that the themes of grief and grieving are most pronounced, and it is both heartwrenching and nightmarish to read about how she deals with Leah, and her notion that maybe, her wife didn’t quite come back as herself. There’s a kind of slow, inexorable awakening in these chapters that feels terrifying, because you can see how Miri realizes that something is coming, KNOWS it’s inevitable, but isn’t sure yet what she’ll do. She’s failed before, after all. Will she fail again?
As for Leah’s chapters, this is where the horror story side of the novel comes in, which I won’t get into for fear of spoilers, but they feel very cosmic horror-esque - and no, NOT because of the obvious Cthulhu references. These chapters are slow too, like the Miri chapters, but the flavor of terror here is different: a slow descent (heh) into the unknown, into madness (?), into thoughts that are maybe best left in the depths of the mind. What’s down there in the very deepest depths of the ocean? Who knows. What lies in the very deepest depths of the human mind? Who knows. Do we want to know? SHOULD we know?
Taken all together, these chapters twine and twist and twist and TWIST so the tension’s almost unbearable, until finally, towards the book’s latter fourth, they finally snap and unravel into the conclusion. That the POV makes everything feel twice as intimate and maybe a tiny bit claustrophobic - which I personally enjoyed, mostly because of how uncomfortable it was to see all this happening. I know that seems strange, but the up-close feel really made this even more compelling to read. This is helped along by the writing, which is lovely right from the get-go and makes reading this book immensely easy for all that the story feels like it should be going a lot more slowly than it actually does.
And yes, yes, it IS a horror novel, but not quite in the same way as Langan’s book. No: the horror here is in watching the slow deterioration of a relationship/relationships, something indefinable hanging between everyone that no one can seem to get over or around. And the thing is: it’s neither of their faults. On one hand, how do you explain a profoundly traumatic experience to someone? An experience that has changed you so fundamentally, that it might feel like you’re someone else entirely? And on the other hand, how do you try to understand what your partner is going through in the wake of a traumatizing event? How do you reach out to them, ask them to open up, without accidentally cutting them, or yourself, on the sharp edge of a memory? How do two people deal with the weight of all that? How do you keep a relationship from just…disintegrating?
In broad strokes, that’s what happens in this novel. The story is told via first-person narration with both Miri and Leah as narrators, the chapters alternating between them. On one hand, Miri’s chapters are mostly set in the present, drifting back and forth to explore her past as it relates to the present of her and the just-returned Leah. It is in Miri’s chapters that the themes of grief and grieving are most pronounced, and it is both heartwrenching and nightmarish to read about how she deals with Leah, and her notion that maybe, her wife didn’t quite come back as herself. There’s a kind of slow, inexorable awakening in these chapters that feels terrifying, because you can see how Miri realizes that something is coming, KNOWS it’s inevitable, but isn’t sure yet what she’ll do. She’s failed before, after all. Will she fail again?
As for Leah’s chapters, this is where the horror story side of the novel comes in, which I won’t get into for fear of spoilers, but they feel very cosmic horror-esque - and no, NOT because of the obvious Cthulhu references. These chapters are slow too, like the Miri chapters, but the flavor of terror here is different: a slow descent (heh) into the unknown, into madness (?), into thoughts that are maybe best left in the depths of the mind. What’s down there in the very deepest depths of the ocean? Who knows. What lies in the very deepest depths of the human mind? Who knows. Do we want to know? SHOULD we know?
Taken all together, these chapters twine and twist and twist and TWIST so the tension’s almost unbearable, until finally, towards the book’s latter fourth, they finally snap and unravel into the conclusion. That the POV makes everything feel twice as intimate and maybe a tiny bit claustrophobic - which I personally enjoyed, mostly because of how uncomfortable it was to see all this happening. I know that seems strange, but the up-close feel really made this even more compelling to read. This is helped along by the writing, which is lovely right from the get-go and makes reading this book immensely easy for all that the story feels like it should be going a lot more slowly than it actually does.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Vomit, and Grief
Moderate: Death of parent