Under Water

A Novel

By: Tara Menon

Narrated by: Chantelle Ramdeen

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, NPR, OPRAH DAILY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, DEBUTIFUL AND MORE!

“In equal measure compelling and heart wrenching. ” —Claire Messud

“Overwhelming and exquisite–in a word, sublime.” —Namwali Serpell

“A novel of remarkable delicacy and power.”—Katie Kitamura

An intense, atmospheric novel about the devastating power of friendship, set against the backdrop of two cataclysmic events

After Marissa loses her mother at six, the most intimate relationship of her life begins. Her marine biologist father, determined to channel his grief into completing his wife’s research, whisks her across the globe to Thailand. There she meets Arielle, and a fairytale friendship takes hold. During the week, the girls live at the resort owned by Arielle’s parents; on the weekends they join the tight-knit community of researchers on a nearby island. Together the girls discover the fragile wonders of its reefs, forests, and beaches. Together they learn to dive into the deep, holding their breath for minutes at a time, as effortlessly synchronized as the manta rays they come to know by name. Together they learn to swim their way out of danger. But then comes a wave Arielle can’t outpace, leaving Marissa gutted with loss.

Years later, Marissa is back in New York, adrift and haunted by the memory of her friend. Over the course of two fateful days, as another cataclysm approaches the city and the past comes flooding back, she discovers how to sustain herself in a precarious world.

Critic reviews

Praise for Under Water:

“[A] luminous debut that moves with the speed of a single held breath… [The] novel shows how grief behaves like weather, returning without warning and changing the air in a room…What lingers is not disaster, but devotion: love refusing to sink.” —Oprah Daily

“Evocative…a contemplative, slow-burning novel that invites readers to swim in its emotional undercurrents.”—Boston.com

“Stunning and complex; a book that admits no easy answers but also refuses to avoid the hard questions.”—Kirkus, STARRED review

“Menon’s dynamic debut…is sure to pull at the reader’s heartstrings.” —Publishers Weekly

"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

“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

Profound and lyrical

Do not be discouraged by the opening of Tara Menon's *Under Water*. It is disturbing — genuinely stomach-turning — but its purpose becomes clear as this devastatingly tender story about grief, trauma, identity, and memory unfolds. Menon's prose is astounding throughout.

Through her protagonist Marissa, the reader is transported to life off the coast of Thailand, where Marissa is brought at age six after her mother's sudden death. Her father, determined to continue his late wife's research on manta ray reproduction, raises Marissa in this remote, beautiful world. Along the way, Menon weaves in fascinating details about manta ray life cycles and the threat of poaching — a quiet, enriching bonus in an already layered novel.

The structure pivots between two time periods: December 2004 in Thailand, and 2012 in New York. Those dates are not chosen casually. Thailand was devastated by the catastrophic tsunami of December 26, 2004, and New York was struck by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. If you have ever wanted to understand what it felt like to live through the tsunami's destruction, Menon does not look away. She holds nothing back.

Marissa carries the weight of that formative catastrophe into her New York life, and as Sandy bears down on the city, the parallels between the two disasters — and the two versions of herself — emerge with quiet, aching precision. Thankfully, Menon peppers her prose with flashes of humor, even a touch of snark, which keeps the novel from becoming relentlessly bleak and makes the emotional impact all the more effective.

Chantelle Ramdeen's narration is beautiful, and the audio format suits this introspective story perfectly. Other reviewers have called it compelling and heartbreaking in equal measure — I couldn't say it better myself. Highly recommended.