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The water slurps my shoulders, torso, and back in a big, wet kiss, bending my image into an ironic clone of the truth. I bow to its dominance and let it break me open. The water alone will have me.
Watched obsessively by her guru-like coach, a nameless swimmer battles the element of water in a gruelling physical regimen. Outside of training, she floats loose in waters murky, salty, and chlorinated, engaging in aimless self-destruction, restraint looming just beyond her drifting hand. Incrementally, swimming is killing her; the pool is killing her. Hovering always nearby is a prickly vulture, waiting to feed on the swimmer’s remains …
Intense and immersive, Kiss the Undertow is a psychologically gripping account of endurance pushed to extremes.
"On a tour through the days and nights of a young athlete being exploited by her coach, Kiss the Undertow accumulates in turbulence. Discomfiting and sensorial, Larochelle's narrator pushes herself to the blurry edges of pleasure, dirt, and revelation. I couldn't stop reading." — Tamara Faith Berger, author of Yara
“Immersing the reader in a world where these horrors seem unrelenting, Kiss the Undertow delivers an unsettling and unflinching look at the complex reality of abuse and psychological control.” — West Trade Review
“Written in rhythmic prose that engages all the senses through thick description, Kiss the Undertow is as unrelenting as the narrator’s training … For fans of dark, atmospheric literature with a focus on difficult characters, Marie-Hélène Larochelle and Michelle Winters offer Anglophone readers a gripping novel in translation.” — Miramichi Reader