If there was ever a book that mimics the push and pull of the sea, the quiet build up to a big crescendo of waves, the turbulence and the tranquility – then this is it. The oceanography was educational but in a beautiful and interesting way, perfect for those who prefer to learn through lyrical prose than through factual textbook.
As immersive as a wide open sea and as isolating as it is beautiful, this book with touches of the horrific interspersed with a love story, was truly beautiful. A tale of human nature, in the end.
About the Book
Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home.
To have the woman she loves back should mean a return to normal life, but Miri can feel Leah slipping from her grasp. Memories of what they had before – the jokes they shared, the films they watched, all the small things that made Leah hers – only remind Miri of what she stands to lose. Living in the same space but suddenly separate, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had might be gone.
About The Author
Julia Armfield was born in London in 1990. She is a fiction writer and occasional playwright with a Masters in Victorian Art and Literature from Royal Holloway University. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2019. She was commended in the Moth Short Story Prize 2017, longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award 2018, and won the White Review short story prize 2018.
Her first book, salt slow, is a collection of short stories about bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of its characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession and love. She won the Pushcart Prize in 2020.
Julia Armfield lives and works in London.
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