As Hurricane Sandy approaches New York City in 2012, 20-something Marissa works at a travel magazine promoting luxury hotels to the uberwealthy. Her editor wants her copy to make subscribers “be able to close their eyes and be there.”
Indeed, readers of Tara Menon’s stunning debut novel, Under Water, will feel exactly that—as though they’re diving amid the beautiful waters off the coast of Thailand, where Marissa spent her unusual childhood exploring the coral reefs with her best friend, Arielle. Menon’s mesmerizing descriptions of these halcyon days are best read slowly and savored. The girls revel in the natural world that surrounds them, especially relishing hypnotizing glimpses of the manta rays that Marissa’s father studies. They spend weekends at his island research camp and weekdays at the hotel that Arielle’s parents run on the mainland. The contrast between this bustling tourist area and natural reserves for marine research creates an important dichotomy, especially when the girls see that some of their beloved mantas have been killed by poachers.
A sense of impending doom pervades the book: Menon seamlessly toggles between scenes in New York and Thailand, chronicling the days leading up to Sandy’s arrival and to the Thailand tsunami of 2004, which Marissa survived but Arielle did not. As Marissa explains, “Whenever the earth revolts—earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, landslides, wildfires, hurricanes—I can’t stop thinking about her. Since that day, I have become obsessed with disasters.”
Balancing a narrative between such idyllic scenes and moments of complete devastation is certainly tricky. Menon harnesses this tension to explore Marissa’s overwhelming grief—and guilt—over losing her best friend. “There is no place in our language for grief about friends, or love for them,” she writes. The two girls were anchors for each other amid turbulence: Marissa lost her mother at age 6, and Arielle’s father is cruel and abusive. Now, in death, Arielle continues to preoccupy Marissa’s consciousness, seeming to walk with her at every moment. “Since Arielle left me, I feel submerged,” she confesses. “I can’t find my way to the surface.”
Menon’s novel is a memorable addition to the literature of grief (which Marissa explores), combining the captivating force of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking with the mysteriousness of Namwali Serpell’s The Furrows. Meticulously crafted, Under Water piercingly touches on topics like PTSD and misogyny while probing the multitude of ways in which the world’s beauty can be upended, both by natural events and by human actions.