The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami was the earliest global event I can remember ... The Harvard professor Tara Menon was a teenager in Singapore when it hit. In a normal year her family would have been on holiday in Thailand over Christmas; that year they were not. Fuelled by this lingering 'What if?', she has tackled the subject with confidence and style ... The novel is at its best when it describes the eerie quiet of the hours before the tsunami hits ... As the wave smashes into the shore, the writing seems to waver in its confidence, with oversimplified, staccato sentences ... This attempt is a valiant one, and the emotional story that thrums beneath the tumultuous events is completely plausible — Under Water is, at its heart, about the deep and lasting grief you can feel for a true friend, and that’s a sentiment that extends far beyond the particular terrors of the 2004 tsunami.
Menon’s first novel builds slowly, switching back and forth between 2004 and 2012, before and after devastating events unfurl. At times, the pacing feels forced, and the nuances of the girls’ friendship remain underexplored. Nevertheless, the atmospheric descriptions, including of sea creatures, and a soulful sadness permeate, making this a touching story and a promising debut.
A brilliant, limpid, emotionally devastating story ... There is something truly special about this novel ... I loved every sentence, every word, and only wished there were more of them.
Oscillating between the days leading up to the tsunami and the hours before Sandy hits New York in 2012, this debut novel tenderly and yet unflinchingly mines Marissa’s grief as it meditates on friendship, loss, and the shimmering beauty of memory—as ephemeral as the light that filters down through shallow ocean waters and just as enduring ... Stunning and complex; a book that admits no easy answers but also refuses to avoid the hard questions.
Dynamic ... Menon crafts vivid depictions of tropical marine life and offers a visceral depiction of survivor’s guilt ... This is sure to pull at the reader’s heartstrings.
