Underlake
A Novel
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Underlake
Pre-order Now for £18.39
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Erin L. McCoy
About this listen
“Stunning . . . Achingly true to the human need for hope and forgiveness, Underlake reveals the greatest depths are within the human heart.” —Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker
“Eerie and mesmerizing . . . A journey into the deepest recesses of American society . . . A breathtaking and unforgettable debut about what happens when the water rises and when the water runs out.” —Susanna Kwan, author of Awake in the Floating City
“Underlake is a novel of gorgeous, pressurized truth. . . . There are images here I know I will never forget as long as I live.” —Clare Beams, author of The Garden
Twelve years ago, Otta escaped her small town, determined to become a marine biologist. Now she’s returned, carrying the guilt of a friend’s disappearance during a deep-sea dive and unsure she’ll ever be able to dive again. Then a stranger appears at her door.
This stranger, May, says that her daughter has run away, and insists that she’s under the nearby lake—alive. To find the missing girl, Otta and May must travel deeper and deeper beneath the water, confronting webs of fear, control, and delusion borne of a rampant nostalgia for a purer world. Along the way, they will push their bodies to the mortal limit.
Hypnotic and arresting, Underlake brings a poet’s attention to language, evoking the ethereal work of Marilynne Robinson, Lauren Groff, and Emily St. John Mandel and the imaginative brio of Margaret Atwood. In taking her place as a major new voice in American fiction, McCoy shrewdly explores the American obsession with inheritance, property, and race, asking how we stake our claim on the timeline of history—and who we erase in the process.
Critic reviews
“Underlake is a novel of gorgeous, pressurized truth. Erin L. McCoy has brought all the layers of love and grief and history to bear, along with an astonishing virtuosity of language. There are images here I know I will never forget as long as I live.”
—Clare Beams, author of The Garden
“Eerie and mesmerizing, Underlake is a journey into the deepest recesses of American society and the human heart. Erin L. McCoy guides the reader through lightless tunnels and shimmering pools, charting an underwater world of communities living in extreme isolation. At each step, this book illuminates how faith, language, and truth can warp or sharpen under extraordinary pressure. This is a spellbinding exploration of the risks we take for love, reminiscent of the survival story in Women Talking and the labyrinthine mysteries of Piranesi. A breathtaking and unforgettable debut about what happens when the water rises and when the water runs out.”
—Susanna Kwan, author of Awake in the Floating City
“In this stunning debut, Erin L. McCoy has found another world beneath our own, where attempts to create a purer society inculcate the worst tendencies of what its inhabitants have disavowed. At times surreal but—from the beginning to its sublime last line—also achingly true to the human need for hope and forgiveness, Underlake reveals that the greatest depths are within the human heart.”
—Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker
—Clare Beams, author of The Garden
“Eerie and mesmerizing, Underlake is a journey into the deepest recesses of American society and the human heart. Erin L. McCoy guides the reader through lightless tunnels and shimmering pools, charting an underwater world of communities living in extreme isolation. At each step, this book illuminates how faith, language, and truth can warp or sharpen under extraordinary pressure. This is a spellbinding exploration of the risks we take for love, reminiscent of the survival story in Women Talking and the labyrinthine mysteries of Piranesi. A breathtaking and unforgettable debut about what happens when the water rises and when the water runs out.”
—Susanna Kwan, author of Awake in the Floating City
“In this stunning debut, Erin L. McCoy has found another world beneath our own, where attempts to create a purer society inculcate the worst tendencies of what its inhabitants have disavowed. At times surreal but—from the beginning to its sublime last line—also achingly true to the human need for hope and forgiveness, Underlake reveals that the greatest depths are within the human heart.”
—Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker
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