The Swift Dark Tide

by Katia Ariel

What happens when, in the middle of a happy heterosexual marriage, a woman falls in love with another woman?
The Swift Dark Tide is a story of selfhood and desire, of careful listening to an ungovernable heart.
Part memoir, part love letter, The Swift Dark Tide is also a chronicle of life by the sea, journeying between Melbourne’s St Kilda and the Black Sea town of Odessa. Katia Ariel introduces us to a lineage of soulful, strident women and beautifully nuanced men. She invites us into home and heart to witness love, loss and joy, motherhood, daughterhood and the urgent wildness of the body.
Praise for The Swift Dark
‘A lyrical memoir of family, inheritance and queer becoming. Ariel writes with the eyes of a poet and the heart of a true romantic. Her sentences are crystalline marvels, gifts to be savoured and held up to the light.’ — Yves Rees, author of All About Yves
‘Alive with passion and pain, exquisitely metaphorical, Ariel’s memoir is a stunning feat of honesty. Not only a captivating story of one relationship and its breathtaking beginnings, it is also a journey of family, migration, motherhood, and entrusting ourselves to our hearts and bodies. The writing pulses with love, drawing meticulous connections between place, family and desire spanning continents, bodies and generations. Immerse yourself in Ariel’s richly poetic world and savour its visceral impact.’ — Katherine Brabon, author of The Shut Ins and The Memory Artist
‘Rich and raw, lyrical, philosophical but also deeply moving, The Swift Dark Tide is that rare an unforgettable memoir.’ — Nigel Featherstone, author of My Heart is a Little Wild Thing and Bodies of Men

Genres: Memoir, Australia, Nonfiction, LGBT, Biography Memoir, Contemporary

Paperback

First published January 27, 2023

Reviews

[Nat K · Rating 3 out of 5]

***Longlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize***

***04.April.2024 Shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize***

A slow burn about a woman in her early forties who is re-evaluating and re-discovering her sexuality.

My feelings towards this book ebbed and waned along with the flow of the story. It’s about desire and longing and the wanting of something that most others don’t understand. A memoir, Katia Ariel talks about her journey of going from a happily married woman deeply in love with her husband (with whom she has three children), when a chance meeting changes everything. And makes her question who she is, and if she was living an honest life based on her strong attraction to a woman who she was willing to turn her life - and the lives of her husband and children - upside down for.

”The thing that makes it awful is the dynamic of betrayal at the centre of everything. Currently it’s an uninterrupted ache: living with a man whom I have hurt so terribly simply by being me.”

There are several stories within this story. From St.Kilda where Ms.Ariel lives to Odessa which is where her family fled from when she was a young girl, landing in Melbourne. It’s interesting that while the focus is on Ms.Ariel (being her story) and her dilemma of a new love and all the bursting emotions that go with that, this is perhaps even more about her mother and grandmother before her. Both extraordinary, strong women with nuanced and complicated love lives of their own. The lineage of determination and resilience. A case of another generation completing what another had begun?

Feelings are complex as is this memoir at times. It seemed to often circle in on itself, and at times I couldn’t quite keep track of whether it was the mother or grandmother’s story in Odessa that was being told. Having said that, those sections were wonderfully beautiful and poignant.

It took me far longer to finish reading this (or it felt that way) for such a small novel. There’s such a depth of emotion in it, that though I felt I was reading and reading, I didn’t seem to cover much territory. There’s a lot to take in. Relationships and people are complicated, and that’s made very clear through all the questions being asked here, while also celebrating an abundance of love.

I have to admit that the last few pages did bring a tear to my eye. I wasn’t expecting that. 3.5⭐ stars for such brutal honesty.

”I can't help but swim in the ocean of all the losses.”

”...lifes owes us nothing but the moment at hand. It our optimism that kills me, the relentless trying, that feels like the loveliest animal impulse of all our endeavors. The way we pull but mostly push. Push back the ending we know so well, securing our wishful boats against that swift, dark tide.”

Katia Ariel talks here about what led her to write this book, which is essentially a love story:
https://stella.org.au/theswiftdarktide/

Perhaps her grandad has the best advice of all:
”Whatever it is, you must fix your life. And be happy.”

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stella Prize longlist 2024

This memoir tells the story of a woman, her family and her sexual awakening. It is told in snippets, in vignettes, pages from a diary, and largely covers the period of three years with some flashbacks.

Arial is from a Russian Jewish migrant family and the novel moves between Odessa and Melbourne. She is married with children, but discovers a different side of herself with a female lover who remains unnamed.

I loved some of the writing, the imagery is beautiful. There were lines and paragraphs I just wanted to immediately read again. There is a rich history, strong women, a thoughtful man, and an interesting exploration of the way Arial's life changes. But somehow, I wanted more. It took me a while to get into the reading, and I felt some sections were stronger for me than others. Ultimately the themes covered were perhaps too powerful for such a short work, at least for this reader.

[Madonna Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our Aussie Book club here in Boston just finished reading this book, thanks to the wonderful recommendation by Karen Kirsten in our group! Katia, thank you for sharing your personal journey and memoirs with such beautiful poetic words. I could feel your longing and heartache and everything else in between as you navigated your family, it’s history, your marriage, your love and your identity throughout this major season in your life. Your storytelling has given important examples of how one can navigate such situations in life. I hope you are content wherever you are and whomever you share your life with now. Thank you and bravo.

[Karen Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most exquisite books I’ve read this year. A literary, sweeping, masterpiece of a memoir of luminous, dreamy prose. We follow Katia from her birth place in Odessa to St.Kilda in Melbourne, and her treacherous but compassionate exploration of homeland, marriage and family, desire and identity, and what happens when she falls in love with a woman. Every single sentence is a lyrical feast.

[Deb Chapman · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. I found this book to be quite uneven; the first half seemed to get too indulgent in the endless machinations of her 2 lovers dilemma, it woke me up more in the middle with the Odessa family stories and then the ending didn’t really end up happy, even tho it was honest and brutal in its telling of her feelings. Writing is lyrical and evocative which is what kept me going. Will have to think about it a bit more. A sustained deep dive into a whole novel of someone’s feelings is a lot, and unusual, so I think I’ll like it more from a distance!

[Lou Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite writing that impossibly articulates silence and the almost imperceptible beauty of love in its many forms.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this on the Stella Long List and saw my library already had a copy. Far out, what a seductive read. I wish I could have the author write about my own life and relationships. Her writing is exquisite; mythical, embodied, and gleeful. 4.5 stars.

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some beautiful moments of poetic prose throughout a story that is at its core about identity, and which encompasses family, desire, faith, art, culture, Greek mythology - at times I wondered if the scope was too broad for this slim book. Perhaps wore the Maggie Nelson influence a little too close to the surface - this isn't The Argonauts.

[Rebecca Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely mesmerizing and full of luscious metaphors which Katia uses expertly to plumb the undulating complexities of adult relationships. It also helped me understand female love on a new level. The imagery will stay with me for a long time. Highly recommended and can’t wait to read Katia’s next book!

[Ashlin O'Flaherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this book after listening to Katia do a reading at a local event. Thanks for sharing your story Katia, I really enjoyed the book!

[Indiana Kanat · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautifully written. So moving.

[Jennifer Salinas · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5-4 stars ⭐️
Very different perspective to any I’ve read before, and I think the writing style is very unique and clever. Was just quite unenjoyable to read because of the content, and the inclusion of certain aspects (eg stories about her daughter, a lot of the early chapters) seemed unnecessary and were a slog to get through. Wouldn’t recommend to be honest.

[Anna Dunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The description of this as a non-novel, a part memoir, part diary, part exploration, part poem is frankly a complete cop out. Maybe I’m being inflexible on what art can mean. But this isn’t a story. Or at least not a cohesive one. It’s an amalgamation of the notes section of a clever person’s phone. It’s a scrapbook and a failure of the editing process. It’s a draft. Katia arial can write - some incredibly lyrical passages and beautiful images. But she has completely failed to weave a compelling story together here. She’s experienced a deeply human and frankly probably not that uncommon thing and she’s presented it as super natural. She explores the disruption of lust and longing and she tries to connect it in a fragmented often boring way to her Eastern European homeland. I found her arrogant and lacking reflection - she interrogated her lust and limerence but if others did they were dismissed as lacking the capacity to understand. She writes from the dopamine fuelled position of a person deeply infatuated and while that makes for compelling writing it doesn’t make for balance or curiosity. She never interrogated herself.
I read Bri Lee the Work prior to this and it was such an appallingly poorly written book that I had to rate this one higher given the author’s obvious skill and command of language. But I enjoyed it about as much as one star the work. Two stars here.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘It seems to me that opening a marriage is less about trading permissions and more about riding a force. This is its brutal and wonderful power, its unstable elemental property, what makes it bloom like nitrous oxide and slide like mercury; the final stage of labour, irreversible and bloody.’

Katia Ariel, in a happy heterosexual marriage and the mother of three children, falls in love with another woman. In this book, Ms Ariel writes of her life and loves. She shares stories of her family: leaving Odessa with her mother as a child for life in Australia; marriage to Noah; their three children, especially the fraught birth of daughter Delphi; and then falling in love with a woman. Ms Ariel’s life, and that of her family, are turned upside down. What does it mean?

‘As I chop the coriander, I contemplate that I am a dialogue of longings, I am a being who comes into frequent contact with death, mostly the death of assumption that two people owe each other a lifetime of repetitive emotional statements and that there is safety in that. When I am in the roiling furnace of this life-choice, which is always, I am a dying thing, I am an ancient bronze scarab, I am a cockroach, I am a diamond.’

We each live one life (or so I believe) and choices matter. Ms Ariel has not made her choice lightly and is aware of the consequences. The world has not collapsed, those directly impacted adapt and adjust, or so it seems. As the story unfolds, we learn more about Ms Ariel’s family and history.

‘I’m often afraid too. I’m not telling you that this is easy, or risk-free. I am just telling you that I’m never going to live my life the old way again. I will stay in this because it answers questions about who I am. Because once upon a time I fell in love with this man, but now I am in something undeniable with this woman. And, mum, because I am a woman who loves women. I have always been that, I just didn’t know that’s what it was.’

As an engaged reader, I found myself wondering why I viewed this story any differently from similar stories where a member of a heterosexual couple finds themselves drawn to another (opposite sex) partner. Is it because it is less common? Is it because I am biased? Is it because children are involved? Is it because I am old, and have been married for over 45 years? Hmm. I’ve decided that it is a combination of ‘less common’ and a reluctance to accept that sexuality can be mutable. Inconsistent, I know, especially as I know several couples in similar circumstances. So I revise my assumptions and read on. The language Ms Aerial uses to tell her story is rich in imagery, full of awareness, truth, and hope. Yes, this is one person’s journey but several of the issues raised are relevant to the formation and continuation of all intimate relationships.

‘It’s our optimism that kills me, the relentless trying, that feels like the loveliest animal impulse in all our endeavours. The way we pull but mostly push. Push back the ending we know so well, securing our wishful boats against that swift dark tide.’

A reflective read. One I may revisit.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Halle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really love the way Katia Ariel uses poetry as a means of communicating complex ideas and experiences. The story was genuine and vulnerable.

Quotes that stood out to me:

“The father’s job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse to ride into battle when it’s necessary to do so. If you don’t get that from your father, you have to teach yourself… I didn’t think about my father in that moment…I felt my mother and her mother. I sensed in my blood, in a cool fast rush of first hand remembrance, the way they taught me up to ride into battle, the way they seemed to always be riding into battles themselves.”

“She is best understood through verbs: cartwheeling is number one. When I see her in my sleep, or meet her in my stillness, she is always cartwheeling across a meadow. Rolling is the other one; she is a soft and bendy child rolling down a giant grassy hill that will eventually plateau, but not yet, not yet. Her mouth is open (wonder); her eyes are wide (wonder). Her spine is loose and her legs are strong. There is trust in her joints, swivel in her gaze.”

“No matter what I do, whether it's painful or difficult or beautiful, it feels right. Dancing, lifting weights, feeling angry, eating, starving - all of it finally feels like it's supposed to, not like I'm going through the motions inside someone else's skin.”

“What I do not say is fucking. That of course fucking finally feels so right in my body. That fucking a woman is so right it has changed the way I sleep and dream. It has changed the way I hear music (more accurately: what was once a dance party over the hills is now a string quartet in my living room); the way I garden (every millimetre of fingertips talks to the soil and the soil talks back); the way I feel when I enter a room (not like a child, not like someone who comes bearing apology).”

“I am telling my friend that my weeping over the photos is a disenfranchised ocean, about another loss, and the one before that. Each of them cups the other from beneath and neither is finally held at all.”

“I say, 'It baffles me, how two people who need each other very much can also cause each other so much pain.' My friend looks at me with eyes that say,
"Your answer is in your question.’”

“Now I can sense, with such agonising gravity, how when we are hurting for one human, we hurt for all the missing people in our emotional lineage. And now I can sense, when yet another full moon sidles up to the treeline and I am without you, separation is an ancient story in my body. Yes, there is a particular howl for you. But there is a louder, more eternal one, for this final fact: we fall in love, and we make promises and babies and deals and dreams. We bribe each other and we bribe the timeline. And the timeline owes us nothing - life owes us nothing but the moment at hand. It's our optimism that kills me, the relentless trying, that feels like the loveliest animal impulse in all our endeavours. The way we pull but mostly push. Push back the ending we know so well, securing our wishful boats against that swift, dark tide.”

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It seems to me that opening a marriage is less about trading permissions and more about riding a force. This is its brutal and wonderful power, its unstable elemental property, what makes it bloom like nitrous oxide and slide like mercury; the final stage of labour, irreversible and bloody."

The writing here is as gorgeous as the cover. The prose is assured, with Ariel wielding her keyboard with confidence in the joy of words, sharply and effectively contrasting with her documented her journey to confidence in her own sexuality. She writes with sensual force, and control even as she writes about the gradual surrender of control in her increasingly messy personal life, the discovery of a heart sensuality with a complexity new to her. The overall effect can be stunning, a balance that stops this from feeling either too uncertain or lacking in vulnerability to connect too.
A Stella nomination tempted me back to this memoir (and it won't be the last), but my discomfort with the genre remains. I am acutely aware of the act of writing and how it intersects with future events (Ariel's husband is painted in saintly colours, at times without the life and movement the 'character' would require to feel real, making me even more acutely aware that this is the story of a family going through something difficult.). There is also something about doubling down on subjectivity, which probably contradicts my preference. These are not mediated factors here, making this less comfortable.
Or, to quote one of my favourite bits, "it makes me suspicious of our love of words, of names, of the way we have played with them like glitter when they were really ground up glass."

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Swift Dark Tide is an offering of the most beautiful, intimate nature: a memoir that carves wonderful, characterful portraits of the people in the author's life as well as takes readers on her learning of self. The author, Katia Ariel, folds herself open in such a gentle way, allowing readers to witness and wander in the complex, private parts of her life and family. I feel truly changed from reading this story, through Ariel's candour and boldness, and her stunning, beautiful writing. She is able to express and pin things down in such a way that it feels at each part of the narrative as though you are holding some small fluttery creature in your hand, and you get some breath-taking moment with it, before it glides off, allowing another to land and unfold for you. The experience of reading this novel feels alive. lively. enlivening. Ariel's writing and her way of expressing the world is a gift. The story is of learning who she is now, who she has come from, her culture, and of unwrapping her queer identity and allowing herself to explore it. She models such stong verve for life within her writing, which you can also see, through the stories, has been beautifully modelled for her too. This is a memoir that has the power to shape just by being granted witness of Ariel's strength and stories, and I most definitely have been unfurled by reading it. It is such a powerfully precious piece of writing.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deeply personal and generous memoir of a woman moving from her marriage to a man, to finding a spark of something else and navigating to opening their relationship to allow her to explore a connection to a woman.

I wasn't immediately drawn to this book, and admit that if it weren't for my addiction to reading the full Stella Prize longlist with few exceptions each year, I may well have passed on it. But I really enjoyed it, and was so pulled in to the emotional story, the rollercoaster of the heart and following desire. It is deeply personal, raw and shares this incredibly complex journey of queerness from her marriage. A bi story unlike I have encountered to date.

Katia also shares her family story, of the home country and it's influence always echoing through, and the discovery of the thread of commonality as she discovers it within her history.

A brave sharing of an intensely personal experience, that I imagine would help many questioning queer people to consider possibilities and feel seen. For me, it has expanded horizons and understanding, allowed considerations and new perspectives to add to my queer allyship. A gem on the Stella Prize list, for sure.

[James Whitmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This oceanic memoir of desire begins in 2021 by the water, promising a "story of two women who walk into the sea of each other and never return". Writer Katia Ariel then takes us back three years earlier, at a beach in Melbourne, soon after passion had reared between herself and a colleague, the unnamed "you" that much of this book is addressed to. "You smelled ... like mine," Ariel writes, "You belonged in me". At the time Ariel had been married for 15 years to her husband Noah, and had three children, two boys and the youngest, Delphi, whose somewhat miraculous survival earns her her portentous name. Read more on my blog

[Cathryn Wellner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the last five decades, I have been honoured to learn the journeys of women friends who hid their lesbian identity, married, had children, and finally found the confidence to come out. All of them have been eloquent in sharing their stories, but Katia Ariel brings a lyricism and poetry to the story. There were times when, had we been friends, I would have listened openly but cautioned her about expecting too much of both her husband and her lover. She was fortunate. Though both relationships ruptured, she and lover found their way back to each other. Her writing is captivating, her story engrossing.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing in this book is STUNNING. The author is so vulnerable in her openness about a difficult topic - the blossoming of a lesbian relationship and a true understanding of her own sexuality out of a steady and loving heterosexual relationship with the father of her children - while also being so poetic and honest. The final section of the book, written to bring the earlier writings together, does not have the same intensity and openness as the rest of the book, but it is still beautifully written. 4.5 stars

[Helen Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an unusual book, to say the least. The beginning was confusing but once I got into it I found it very interesting. Working out everyone’s relationship and history wasn’t easy, but slowly I came to understand it all. A cleverly conceived and written story, but I’m not sure who of my reader acquaintances I would recommend it to. If you are brave and broad minded then you should give it a try.

[Hutch Hussein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully story of becoming and desire as life gets turned on its head when Katia falls in love with a woman and questions her sexuality and heterosexual marriage. Compellingly written and bravely shared love story that doesn't gloss over non-monogamy. Amidst sharing elements of her grandmother, Katia paints a lineage of rebellious women who pursue their desires and love. Highly recommended read. Can’t wait to discuss it at Book Club.

[Jake Landa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exquisite writing and a book that hit very close to home in a lot of ways. It loses structure in the last third but had really interesting motifs and themes to carry it. Despite enjoying the writing I found Katia's perspective on the consequences of her own actions and how they impacted the people around her quite selfish. Less a judgement of her book and more a judgement of the perspective it offers.

[Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t know what was the purpose of this book. It felt like reading someone’s diary where they are writing down their thoughts and feelings and that’s about it.

There are some beautifully written parts but the whole thing just doesn’t come together. At best it could be few short stories but nothing more.

[Sammi · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times I felt like I wasn’t sure who’s story I was reading, her mothers, her grandmothers, her daughters. Occasionally the writing was beautiful and transcendent. As a queer person this felt almost selfish, despite me knowing how hard life can be.
Turns out I don’t love memoirs.
3 stars for the occasional beauty

[Natalie Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was a really interesting memoir with some beautiful writing. I loved the use of second person. It jumped around a bit and didn't dive into things as much as I thought it might but I did really enjoy reading it.

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really worked hard to like this but I can’t get over the tone and sweeping statements about queerness. I would like to be excluded from this narrative. I appreciate that the author is working to exorcise regret etc but I don’t want to be along for the ride 🫢

[Anna Van Veldhuisen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, a heart achingly accurate and relatable depiction of the trials and joys of non monogamy, and a beautiful love letter to Melbourne and the sea. I devoured this and had several weeps whilst sending screenshots to loved ones.

[Steph]

❤️