Under Water

Menon’s dynamic debut traces a woman’s attempts to move on after surviving the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand. The narrative toggles between the lead-up to that disaster and the imminent landfall of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. As Marissa, now a 24-year-old travel writer in New York City, stocks up on supplies, she’s consumed by memories of the tsunami and her best friend, Arielle, who died in the flooding. Menon then jumps back to seven-year-old Marissa’s move with her family from the U.S. to a small island off the coast of Phuket. There, she meets Arielle, whose parents own a local resort, and the pair become fast friends. They grow up together, swimming with the manta rays in the reef and going on marine biology excursions. The day before the tsunami, they argue about whether to visit their school friends on the mainland or stay for a dive. Marissa insists that they go, which puts them in greater danger and makes her feel responsible for Arielle’s death. Menon crafts vivid depictions of tropical marine life and offers a visceral depiction of survivor’s guilt, which causes Marissa to regularly see and talk to her dead friend eight years later. This is sure to pull at the reader’s heartstrings. Agent: Sebastian Godwin, David Godwin Assoc. (Mar.)