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Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

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Our Wives Under the Sea

by Julia Armfield

Length 6 hours 6 minutes

Language English

Narrators Annabel Baldwin & Robyn Holdaway

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Bookseller recommendation

“For quite some time, Our Wives Under the Sea has been one of my favorite books to recommend. Despite this, I still struggle to explain this plot without eventually resorting to saying something like, “Just read it. Trust me.” This little book is a short read, best described as an agonizingly surreal depiction of a slowly unraveling, completely doomed relationship between two women—one of whom only recently returned after a mysteriously long deep-sea expedition. If you’re a fan of authentic queer storytelling, surrealist fiction, or both, just read Our Wives Under the Sea. Trust me!”
— Maggie • All Good Books

Bookseller recommendation

“A deep-sea mission leads to an unexpected transformation when Miri’s wife, Leah, returns…different, somehow. This tragically eerie novel poses questions of estrangement, self-discovery, and what exactly lies in the deepest parts of the sea. ”
— Lambie • Underground Books

Bookseller recommendation

“Our Wives Under the Sea takes the horror and the awe of the ocean and looks at it through the evolution of a relationship. Miri and Leah's alternating narratives read like love letters, apologies, explanations as they long for one another. Miri's perspective finds her mentally evolving and sinking as much as Leah's does. I couldn't stop reading as Leah uncovered the mystery of the deep and lonely space she and her crew found themselves damned to. Armfield, in riveting prose, weaves body horror, sapphic love, marine biology, religious imagery, and mental illness into a terrifying and beautiful tapestry.”
— Ellie • Page 1 Books

Summary
About the author
About the narrators

Leah is changed. Months earlier, she left for a routine expedition, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night. As Miri searches for answers, desperate to understand what happened below the water, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.

Fiction LGBTQIA+ Fiction Fiction - Literary

Julia Armfield is the author of the story collection salt slow and the novel Our Wives Under the Sea. Her work has been published in Granta, Lighthouse, Analog Magazine, Neon Magazine, and Best British Short Stories. She is the winner of the White Review Short Story Prize and a Pushcart Prize, and she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2019. She lives and works in London.

Annabel Baldwin is an actor and theater maker who trained at ArtsEd. She appeared in the original company of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as Moaning Myrtle.

Robyn Holdaway is a nonbinary actor with a passion for creating diverse and engaging work that explores the boundaries of the human condition. A GSA graduate, they were a finalist for the prestigious Alan Bates Award in their final year. Their credits include Casualty and Doctors for the BBC, Antic Disposition's Macbeth, King Lear, and Lord of the Flies, and commercials for Tesco and Orange.