BOOK REVIEW: UNDER WATER By Tara Menon (Summit Books, 2026)
Tara Menon's debut novel, Under Water, is a haunting story of loss, the fragility of friendship, and the destructive relationship between humans and nature. The novel unfolds across two timelines: New York, bracing for Hurricane Sandy in 2014, and Thailand, ravaged by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It opens with Marissa in New York, where she writes for a travel magazine, describing beautiful holiday destinations for a living. While the storm gathering outside threatens the city, a different kind of storm brews within her, grief for her childhood friend Arielle, for her mother, lost when Marissa was young, for the devastation of her homeland, and for the abrupt end of her childhood. From the outset, we sense that Marissa is troubled by her memories. She wakes from a recurring nightmare compelled to rub chilli on her skin, to awaken her senses and almost punish herself with a reminder of pain. ‘I put the broken fruit into my mouth so I can suck on it slowly, and then I rub my lips and neck and chest with my stained fingertips. The chillies remind me of home.’ From these opening pages, the novel signals an unshakeable sense of loss.
‘I rub my lips and neck and chest with my stained fingertips. The chillies remind me of home.’
The narrative is written in a clear, fragmented style that is compelling even as it holds the reader at a distance. Menon writes with a careful, assured hand, and the novel moves with a wave-like rhythm that mimics the undulations of water. But there are no real peaks here and the devastation and trauma remain entirely quiet and internal, despite the external storms and tsunamis that frame them.
Despite the novel being subdued and careful, I found much to admire in it, the descriptions of the manta rays, for one, are mesmeric, and yet I found it difficult to connect to any of the characters. They remain aloof, almost uneasy to grasp, unable to step off the page in a bolder way. Perhaps this is the author's intention, to show the reader that this is who Marissa is, or has become, subdued and battered by her losses. But the novel nevertheless lacks the depth and roundedness that would have made it linger.
Menon's message is the destruction we cause to the natural world. By making her narrator a travel writer, she immediately signals how we are drawn to the most pristine, untouched places on earth and how we destroy them in turn. The novel touches on female friendship as a towline for a grieving child, but it is equally about the fragile state of our environment, and how we bring about our own undoing.
The novel ends almost too neatly, with Marissa surviving the storm in New York, quitting her job, and flying back to her father in Thailand. Back home, she dives into the ocean to swim with the manta rays, and there is a quiet moment of recognition when ‘The mantas come so close that I can look into their eyes. They take turns swimming in circles around me.’ Here, the novel ends with nature and human becoming one. ‘I stay with them as long as I can hold my breath.’
UNDER WATER By Tara Menon (Summit Books, 2026)