Under Water

A stunning and deeply moving literary debut of grief, loss and female friendship, set against the backdrop of two cataclysmicnaturalevents. When five-year-oldMarissa loses her mother,she is taken byher father to live on a small Thai island in the Andaman Sea. There,sheforms a deep friendship with Arielle andtogether they explore the fragile wonders of itsforests,reefs, and beaches. Holding their breath for minutes at a time, they learn to dive into the deep, as effortlessly synchronized as the manta rays they come to know by name.Then, on Boxing Day 2004, when the Indian Ocean tsunami makes landfall, they are swept up by the first wave and separated. Eight years later,Marissa is livingin New York. Shespends her days wandering through the city and her nights seeking solace in the beds of strangers. As the city prepares for a devastating storm, Marissa reflects on her past and learns how to sustain herself in a precarious world. Under Wateris a story about friendship and grief, but also ecological change and natural disasters. It is a meditation on loss, a tribute to our dying oceans and forests, and a love letter to the disappearing coral reefs.