She picks a strand of noodle-like weed off her arm and begins to cry. Swimming has always cured her of hangover, melancholy, tiredness. She’s grown up making her decisions underwater, in the quiet there, or out the back past the breakers, with the water surging around her and the about-to-break waves lifting her way up high and back down again. This is the first time that swimming has made things worse.If I'm perfectly honest, I have mixed feelings about Romy Ash. She's quite the golden child of Australian writing at the moment and she is, doubtlessly, incredibly talented. That said, I feel she can rely on easy exits sometimes to get you connected to a character - particularly abuse, molestation, etc. It seems to be a feature of a lot of what I've read about her, including her Miles Franklin + Stella nominated novel, Floundering (which is good! And definitely worth reading! I just continue to believe that the sex abuse in that one is entirely unnecessary).
Underwater is a short story of hers published in both the Griffith Review and Best Australian Stories and it really is a lovely and emotive piece of writing. The bond between two siblings traveling to a beach in Japan is biting and sweet, as opposed to just bittersweet, and the relationship of the protagonist with the water is the best kind of beautiful. It's a lovely short story. You can read Underwater over on Ash's website here.
No comments:
Post a Comment