Under Water

A stunning and deeply moving literary debut of grief, loss and female friendship, set against the backdrop of two cataclysmic natural events.

When six-year-old Marissa loses her mother, she is taken by her father to live on a small Thai island in the Andaman Sea. There, she forms a deep friendship with Arielle and together they explore the fragile wonders of its forests, reefs, and beaches. Holding their breath for minutes at a time, they learn to dive into the deep, as effortlessly synchronized as the manta rays they come to know by name. Then, on Boxing Day 2004, when the Indian Ocean tsunami makes landfall, they are swept up by the first wave and separated.

Eight years later, Marissa is living in New York. She spends her days wandering through the city and her nights seeking solace in the beds of strangers. As the city prepares for a devastating storm, Marissa reflects on her past and learns how to sustain herself in a precarious world.

Under Water is a story about friendship and grief, but also ecological change and natural disasters. It is a meditation on loss, a tribute to our dying oceans and forests, and a love letter to the disappearing coral reefs.

“A novel of remarkable delicacy and power, Under Water is about grief, friendship, home, and longing. Menon writes exquisite sentences, sensual and particular, each containing an entire world.” —Katie Kitamura, author of Audition and Intimacies

“Tara Menon beautifully evokes the intensity of a young woman's lost friendship, and the extraordinary natural world—on land and in the ocean—in which that friendship was forged. Under Water, in equal measure compelling and heart wrenching, is a remarkable debut.” —Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History and The Emperor’s Children

“Reading Under Water is like being under water: immersive and stirring, pellucid and mysterious, shot through with light and with shades, overwhelming and exquisite—in a word, sublime.” —Namwali Serpell, author of The Old Drift and The Furrows