When my friends recommend books, I borrow them from the library—my apartment remains infested with paperbacks despite my efforts to downsize, and books are an expensive vice—but I lasted a whole fifteen minutes into the audiobook of Julia Armfield’s novel Our Wives Under the Sea before I caved and ducked into a bookstore to buy it while out on a walk. It was just that good.
Hours later and well after midnight, I sobbed while listening to the novel’s final lines in the dark of my living room. Then I cracked open the physical copy the next morning to start it all over again.
I won’t spoil a thing, but Our Wives Under the Sea is everything the reviews on the back promise: haunting, hypnotic, and sublime. It’s a warm bath and a stomach ache and a mouthful of salt water, and it’s become one of my favourite novels. If you like your fiction strange and speculative, I dare you to give it a try.
— Emily Pegg’s short fiction has appeared in literary journals across the US and Canada, including PRISM International, The Masters Review, CAROUSEL, and West Trade Review. She currently resides in Vancouver, BC, where she has just finished her first novel.
You can read Emily Pegg's story in Issue 300 Summer Fiction 2024. Order the issue now:
Order Issue 300 - Summer Fiction 2024 (Canadian Addresses)
Order Issue 300 - Summer Fiction 2024 (International Addresses)
