The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Armfield, Julia. Our Wives Under the Sea. Flatiron Books, 2022.

Julia Armfield’s first person narrative, Our Wives Under the Sea, follows the lives of a Miri and Leah as they navigate the dissolution of their relationship. The novel oscillates between the first-person point of view of both women; Miri’s sections are told in the present tense while Leah’s sections rely on the past tense. At the outset of the novel, Miri is struggling with her wife’s return from a six-month long oceanic expedition. She wants to help Leah adjust to living on land again, but she is not sure how to navigate Leah’s emotional distance and odd behavior. Leah spends the majority of her time running the taps, sitting in the bathtub, and listening to her sound machine. When the comms panel went out on the submarine, Leah was not afraid, and reminded herself that the craft was built to sink. Her shipmate, Jelka, prayed while the engineer, Matteo attempted to find something to fix.

As time passes, Miri continues to convince herself that Leah will return to her normal self. She imagines the Leah she fell in love with emerging from the woman in front her as she scrubs the tub and avoids her work. When she attempts to talk to Carmen about the shift in their relationship, her friend assumes that Miri is struggling with sharing her space again. During Leah’s absence, Miri initially found reassurance in the fact that her arrival was imminent. However, the Centre did not give her detailed information and as the three weeks extended to months, Miri believed that Leah was dead. She read online forums for the families of people that went missing.

On the submarine, Leah struggled with the lack of light and inability to tell time. She, Matteo, and Jelka drifted into a state of inertia. Jelka continued to pray, and her statue of Saint Brendan moved around the craft, much to the chagrined of Matteo. After an indiscernible amount of time, Jelka began to hear voices. She showered to attempt to relieve the noise but could not escape the incessant talking. When Leah and Matteo were otherwise engaged, Jelka opened the escape hatch and released herself into the Hadal Zone. Leah and Matteo heard the sound as her body was crushed by the pressure.

When Miri answers the phone early one morning, Juna, Jelka’s sister, asks if she would like to meet for coffee. When they talk, Juna informs the narrator that her sister died on the expedition, but the Centre did not provide any details about her demise. She suspects that something nefarious happened on the trip and is eager to find more answers. Miri brings the television into the bathroom so that she and Leah can watch movies together, though she finds it hard to imagine that Leah is the same person she fell in love with. When she attempts to lift her from the tub, Miri recognizes that she cannot continue to keep Leah in the apartment. Her eye had already fallen out of her body and the only thing she can consume is salt water.

Miri and Juna drive Leah to the coast, wrapped in saltwater-soaked towels. The next morning, Miri carries her wife into the ocean and holds her as she watches Leah’s body dissolve. She ponders that perhaps Leah always knew that this was inevitable.