Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines

by Matthew Gavin Frank

An exquisite, lyrical foray into the world of deep-sea divers, the obsession and madness that oceans inspire in us, and the story of submarine inventor Peter Madsen's murder of journalist Kim Wall—a captivating blend of literary prose, science writing, and true crime

"[A] thrilling study of an obsession—to sink below the surface, to depths both metaphoric and in fact. Full of wild characters and strange histories, by the end we are convinced, in no small part by the beauty of [Frank's] language, that this is one of the most important stories ever told."—Nick Flynn, author of This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire

Submersed begins with an investigation into the beguiling subculture of DIY submersible men and women—but mostly men—who are so compelled to sink into the deep sea that they become amateur backyard submarine-builders. Should they succeed in fashioning a craft in their garage or driveway and set sail, they do so at great personal risk—as the 2023 fatal implosion of Stockton Rush's much more highly funded submarine, Titan, proved to the world.

Matthew Gavin Frank explores the origins of the human compulsion to sink to depth, from the diving bells of Aristotle and Alexander the Great to the Confederate H. L. Hunley, which became the first submersible to sink an enemy warship before itself being sunk during the Civil War. The deeper he plunges, however, the more the obsession seems to dovetail with more threatening traits. Following the grisly murder of journalist Kim Wall at the hands of eccentric entrepreneur Peter Madsen aboard his DIY midget submarine, Frank finds himself reckoning with obsession's darkest extremes.

Weaving together elements of true crime, the strange history of the submarine, the mythology of the deep sea, and the physical and mental side effects of sinking to great depth, Frank attempts to get to the bottom of this niche compulsion to chase the extreme in our planet’s bodies of water and in our own bodies. What he comes to discover, and interrogate, are the odd and unexpected overlaps between the unquenchable human desire to descend into deep water, and a penchant for unspeakable violence.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Adult, Crime, Audiobook, Journalism

Audible Audio

First published June 3, 2025

About the author

Matthew Gavin Frank is the author of the nonfiction books, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers, The Mad Feast: An Ecstatic Tour Through America’s Food, Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer, Pot Farm, and Barolo; the poetry books, The Morrow Plots, Warranty in Zulu, and Sagittarius Agitprop, and 2 chapbooks. “Preparing the Ghost” was a New York Times Editors' Choice, an NPR Notable Book, and a New Yorker Book to Watch Out For. “The Mad Feast” was selected as a Staff Pick by The Paris Review, a Best Book of 2015 by Ploughshares, The Millions, and Paste Magazine, and featured in The Wall Street Journal, Saveur, and Entertainment Weekly. His work appears widely in journals and magazines, including The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Guernica, The New Republic, Iowa Review, Salon, Conjunctions, and The Normal School. After spending 17 years in the restaurant industry, he now teaches at Northern Michigan University, where he is the Nonfiction/Hybrids Editor of Passages North.

Reviews

[Kasia · Rating 2 out of 5]

**ARC of this book provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review**

Let me start with informing you that I am not a true crime junkie. I'll read the non-fiction about homicide here and there but I am not getting out of my way to find this content. I am however aware of the critique of the true crime genre that is recently getting louder. This book tries to straddle two opposing sides of the conflict - on the one hand it wants to tell you the story of the murder but on the other hand it doesn't really want to talk about the murderer. Author dances around the subject which creates this narrative hole that interestingly amplifies the sense of loss that came with the killing of Kim Wall. Sadly, everything else is mindbogglingly boring since pages are filled with random trivia, author's philosophical tangents and endless lists of all kind.

This was definitely not a book for me since it contains a lot of my personal pet-peeves: author projects his feelings on the people he is writing about and quite bluntly tries to impose them on the reader too; there are endless digressions that are only loosely connected to the topic; whole paragraphs reiterating same point over and over again just to amplify certain impressions; waxing poetic about nothing in particular; philosophical excursions that go from 0 to 100 and back to 0 in a matter of few sentences; this vague impression that author doesn't really like the people he is talking with. I can go on like this for quite some time.

Still can't decide what tired me more: this chapter when author describes all the buildings Kim saw on her way to the doomed interview with her murderer (6 pages!), a list of the muscles in your hand given immediately after description of Kim waving goodbye to her boyfriend or those random bits about pigeons, stickers and graffities author saw? One thing is certain - I did not enjoy this book. I think that the whole personal submarines community will be very displeased with it as well as author depicts them as identical, middle-aged, white dudes that are meeting only to spray each other with cheap beer.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird comes in many types. For instance, history nerd weird means you may have a podcast that you talk about too much and people avoid being cornered by you at a party. Allegedly. I think (hope) this is a quirky type of weird where people don't actively avoid me or feel uncomfortable. There is another type of weird where people do avoid you because you make their skin crawl and they worry you may start talking about Hitler. Does that previous sentence sound strangely specific? Well, welcome to the world of amateur submarines! Apparently!

Matthew Gavin Frank dives into (see what I did there?) the world of amateur submariners and the murder of journalist Kim Wall in Submersed. I want to make it clear upfront that Frank is not writing a traditional true crime book with a few asides into amateur submarines. It would be more accurate to say the Kim Wall murder by bad person Peter Madsen in his personal submarine is one story of many in this book. If you go looking for a long narrative on the crime and the trial, then you will be disappointed. If you are looking for a meditation on a very specific subset of humans, then oh boy is there a lot here.

Frank does have a somewhat peculiar writing style. Besides authoring non-fiction he also writes poetry, lyrical essays, and does food and travel writing. The positive side of his style is that it does sound very lyrical and his descriptions of things are specific and tangible. However, I do think he goes overboard at times. I found myself more than once hoping he would get back to the story and stop telling me about the colors of things, for instance. It doesn't ruin the book, but it is noticeable.

Another aspect of the story I struggle with is Frank's exploration of the amateur submarine community. On the one hand, I felt like I got a real deep look at the people that populate this insular clique. Frank is clearly trying to understand the fascination of going underwater (he himself is not a fan) and the characters he describes are colorful. They are also quite misogynistic with a few Nazis sprinkled in for good measure. Where I struggle with this part of the story line is that Frank never seems to find a goodhearted submariner. Yes, there is one character where he at least seems neutral, but for a book on a very specific subgroup I wanted to understand their reasons for this hobby. Frank tries to investigate this aspect but keeps it at arms length almost as if he doesn't want to get pulled in himself. Which, when there are a bunch of racists around, is probably a good idea, ultimately. However, I could see someone calling his treatment of an entire community as hostile because he doesn't adequately document (or couldn't find) the positive side.

That said, even with my minor reservations, I was never tempted to put the book down. This exploration was definitely worth the read, and as long as you know what you are getting into, will keep you riveted.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Pantheon Books.)

[Grapie Deltaco · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t care about the world of personal submarines before this and I will be haunted by it moving forward.

This delves deep into the dark and bizarre history of submarining, the details surrounding the torture and murder of Kim Wall, and a closer look into how communities of personal submarine enthusiasts function.

There is so much tragedy and violence attached to desire to sink to unnatural and dangerous depths in the world’s oceans.

When I looked up this author, it didn’t surprise me that he’s a poet on top of being a journalist. His descriptions of Kim Wall and the constant reminders of her humanity were incredibly moving. This is depiction and exploration of a true crime event, but it’s a deeply understandable one. It’s a bias I don’t mind. Kim Wall was a curious journalist looking to get a brief interview with a notable submariner before carrying on into a new chapter in her life and for reasons beyond anyone’s full understanding, she was brutalized and dismembered.

This book is a constant overload of historical information that spans across centuries and often feels sporadic and difficult to follow with how frequently we jump from topic to topic.

This was an impulse purchase that will stick with me for a long while.

CW: murder, death (including children), sexism, naziism, racism, antisemitism, grief

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 rounding down

There’s so much descriptive filler, the author enjoys waxing poetic and gets lost in the weeds.

[Darnell · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's been a while since I disliked a nonfiction book this much and I spent much of my reading time trying to diagnose exactly why. It's rambly and unfocused, certainly, and I considered classifying it as the reverse of Mary Roach: where she's excellent at picking out interesting facts and weaving them into a book, this picks boring facts and mashes them together artlessly.

Another possibility is that this is related to the "true crime" aspect, though I don't want to condemn an unfamiliar genre. I dislike this sort of vibe-based, time-wasting narrative that circles around an event, anyway. The unforgivable aspect is making up details that no source could possibly have known; insofar as this represents "narrative nonfiction", I am opposed.

Finally, on a page-to-page basis I found the "lyrical" aspect insufferable. For example, regarding how the shell of the nautilus has fascinated people throughout history, the author writes, "In this perfect spiral, we spiral out of control."

Nah. I don't think that's true in any sense, or even saying anything substantial, it's just pseudo-profound fluff. And this book is mostly fluff.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you first and foremost to Pantheon for my advanced copy for an honest review.

I love true crime. I love mysteries. I love exploring new subjects and growing knowledge. I did not love this book. While I did enjoy the indepth story of the murder of Kim Wall and the culture/history behind the PSub community, I felt this book was too stuffed with opinion and pointless narrative. The author clearly researched a lot and wanted to share everything, but unfortunately missed the mark on predicting what the average reader would want to read. The historical references were important and interesting, but a majority of topics were written too in-depth to the point of exhaustion. The 300 pages could have been closer to 200 with all the "fluff and stuff" taken out, making it more entertaining and enjoyable.

[Scott Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tend to like nonfiction books that take me into sub cultures of people that have a huge passion for something I’m not into. The small but committed group of people building their own submarines certainly qualifies.

Throw in a murder and you have some interesting characters and subject matter.

[jas · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting glimpses into submarines and the amateur submersible community, but it was overwritten and went on a lot of tangents – some that were fascinating and relevant and some that felt like they were trying to bolster a word count (too many descriptions of buildings and random businesses that have nothing to do with anything). jumped around so much that it ended up feeling disconnected from the central case of the murder of kim wall. also some very weird descriptions of people in some parts that made me uncomfortable – why did we need to describe how handsome a bar owner who handed over the CCTV proving kim wall hadn't been there was?

i think it gets lost in its tangents and determination to be poetic, and ultimately i think this would have been better as two books rather than combining stuff about submarining as a hobby with the murder.

[Norah S · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting topic but Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines by Matthew Gavin Frank does not do it justice. Trying to squeeze way too much into one book distracts from everything & makes this book so hard to follow. So unfortunate. Everything is left incomplete. With so much flowery language distracting from the supposed topic, I’m not even entirely sure what I read.

[Elizabeth Pappas]

Didn’t finish it. I thought this was going to be about the overall community/history of submarines, but it was actually a novelistic true crime that danced around the subject with constant philosophic and descriptive asides. There are a lot of assumptions about what people feel and think, so you can’t take for granted that anything said in the book is necessarily true.

[Jamele (BookswithJams) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Pantheon Books #partner for the gifted book and to PRH Audio for the ALC to review.

I am both fascinated and terrified by the world of deep sea diving and submarines, especially the culture around this and the types of people that can lower themselves into the depths of the earth knowing that if anything goes wrong there is a high likelihood they aren’t coming back alive. Oh especially as they are on AMATEUR SUBMARINES. What?! Submersed is a book that forges into this very culture and it is ROUGH. Especially if you are a woman. I was floored by the types of ish that went on, probably still goes on, and how little was done about it to women. This was a fascinating read, got a little dry at times, and I think audio helped move it along. It also delves into the murder of journalist Kim Wall, which was not pretty by the way, and I was not familiar with that case, how Peter Madsen tried to hide it (and her) and yikes my mind was blown. This is a fascinating look into folks that want to go down into places I have no desire to go but I absolutely most definitely want to read about them.

[Angie · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at p110. This should have been a magazine article.

There’s just not enough content to create a full book. The author, in order to create more, discusses the mechanics of how a person waves. Literally, how a hand works. It’s not a metaphor for anything. It’s not “lyrical” in its meandering, it’s grasping for straws. I feel like he was hoping that these tangents would read allegorically but they don’t.

This is on the level of a blog recipe, trying to fill a word count before you get to the necessary information, but in this case, there’s no payoff.

The whole time I was reading this, I wished I had been reading something else. Even a blog recipe.

[Caylee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a fascinating book about the niche culture of personal submarine builders. Exploring the violent murder of Kim Wall on Peter Madesen’s personal sub, Frank explores the intersection of misogyny, conquest, masculinity, and environment. While a compelling topic, Frank sometimes waxed a bit too poetic for me and could diverge on tangents that, while interesting, might have been best footnoted in order to foreground the through line of the narrative. However, I do recommend this to anyone interested in the neocolonial politics of sub culture!

[Bill Greenhaw · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could not finish this book; a difficult read that was simply not entertaining. I thought the story line was going to be about a variety of experiences; turned out mostly to be about a murder.

[Demetri · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Submersed, Matthew Gavin Frank plunges the reader into a world both exhilarating and grotesque, a landscape of obsession that stretches from the myths of the deep to the cold, mechanical reality of human ingenuity and folly. From the very first pages, we are drawn into Refshaleøen, Copenhagen’s abandoned shipyard, where rusting warehouses and the smell of saltwater create a terrain both fertile and uncanny. Here, amid the wreckage of industrial ambition and the detritus of human labor, a culture of obsession thrives—a culture of do-it-yourself submariners who gamble with physics and mortality in pursuit of something ineffable. The air is thick with possibility, the promise of submersion, the lure of depth as both metaphor and literal endeavor, and Frank navigates it with a prose style that is at once lyrical and exacting, reverent of both the human and the mechanical.

Frank’s exploration is neither clinical nor detached. He walks us through the corridors of this submersible subculture with the eye of a naturalist and the empathy of a poet. In doing so, he charts the lives of individuals whose fascination with depth surpasses mere hobby or professional curiosity. Hank Pronk, for instance, emerges as a figure of almost mythic patience and dedication, a self-taught engineer whose Elementary 3000 represents the apotheosis of careful ambition. Frank details the submarine’s construction with loving attention, each weld and gauge a testament to human ingenuity and the quiet, obsessive joy of creation. In contrast, Peter Madsen looms as the darker mirror of this compulsion: brilliant, charismatic, and unbound by ethical restraint, a man whose technical prowess and moral blindness converge with terrifying effect. Frank does not sensationalize, but neither does he shirk from the truth, and in recounting the trajectory that led to Kim Wall’s murder, he balances a journalist’s rigor with a literary sensibility that honors the human stakes without lapsing into melodrama.

The book is remarkable in its temporal and thematic reach. Frank’s historical excursions—from Aristotle’s diving bells to Alexander the Great’s undersea experiments, from the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley to the modern implosion of OceanGate’s Titan—serve as more than context; they are connective tissue that illustrates the enduring human compulsion to sink below the surface. He traces not only the technological evolution of submersibles but also the psychological and cultural currents that animate them, revealing the continuum of wonder and danger, curiosity and compulsion, that has always characterized humanity’s encounter with the ocean’s depths. These sections are suffused with Frank’s characteristic lyricism: sentences roll with a cadence that mimics the pull of tides, the slow descent into pressure, the suspended anticipation of submersion. There is a palpable sense that to read Frank is to feel, however vicariously, the weight of the water and the gravity of obsession.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its treatment of Kim Wall herself. She is rendered with clarity, empathy, and a vivid sense of presence. Her curiosity, her intellect, and her courage are foregrounded at every turn. Frank elevates her agency, her choices, her engagement with the world, rather than reducing her to a victim of circumstances. Through Wall, we are invited to witness the intersection of human bravery and human obsession, the ways in which one life can illuminate the ethical and moral dimensions of pursuit, risk, and consequence. Her story is the ethical anchor of the book, a reminder that the fascination with depth, like all compulsion, carries a human cost that cannot be abstracted away.

Frank also excels in his treatment of the sensory, the tactile, and the material. Whether describing the claustrophobic confines of Nautilus, the smell of oil and rust in a repurposed warehouse, or the subtle shifts in pressure and light that accompany submersion, his prose evokes the physical realities of these endeavors with vividness. He invites the reader into the interior worlds of both machine and mind, showing how obsession manifests in bodily discipline, in repeated calculation, in the intimate relationship between human and apparatus. The writing is at once cerebral and corporeal, a sustained meditation on the ways in which knowledge, curiosity, and compulsion are entangled.

Where the book occasionally falters, it is in its ambition to encompass every facet of the submersible world and its histories. At times, the prose meanders, luxuriating in historical or scientific asides that, while fascinating, may test the patience of readers less inclined toward encyclopedic detail. The interweaving of myth, paleontology, physiology, and biography creates a dense textual fabric, and while this is largely a testament to Frank’s erudition and style, it sometimes interrupts the narrative momentum. Nevertheless, these are minor quibbles in a work that otherwise sustains a compelling rhythm and intellectual curiosity.

The final chapters crystallize the book’s central tension: the interplay between wonder and ethical responsibility, between human ingenuity and the potential for destructive obsession. Nautilus is more than a machine; it is a vessel for ambition, curiosity, and, ultimately, moral failure. Frank allows the narrative to linger in the ethical spaces, exploring the limits of personal compulsion, the weight of consequence, and the human fascination with extremes that can both elevate and devastate. The result is a work that is at once thrilling, meditative, and morally rigorous, inviting the reader to consider their own engagements with curiosity, risk, and ethical responsibility.

In sum, Submersed is a book that rewards close attention. It is meticulously researched, sensually immersive, and emotionally resonant. It bridges genres—literary nonfiction, true crime, history, and science writing—without losing coherence or voice. Frank’s prose is a model of clarity and lyricism, capable of rendering both the cold mechanics of a submarine and the hot currents of human obsession with equal vividness. For readers drawn to the extremities of human endeavor, to the complex intersections of curiosity, danger, and morality, this book is a rare and valuable journey.

Rating: 84/100

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I think it was an interesting choice to combine true crime into a book about a hobby. Or is it the reverse? It felt like it should have been one or the other, and switching back and forth didn't help.

I really enjoyed the bits that were focused on women in this world, both as hobbyists and careers. The section on women in the navy just reminded me why I don't trust men... I appreciated the girl power vibe of those sections.

And while it's nice to see the more human side to the author, I felt his fear and anxiety really impacted the interview (which we'd been building up to the entire book) negatively. The opportunity seemed wasted, like maybe there was someone better for the job.

While an interesting read, I think both topics could be covered in separate books more thoroughly.

[susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an advance copy of this book from the Penguin Random House booth at ECCC. Thank you to PRH for being at the con. I appreciate the advance copies I received and the opportunity to read books I might not otherwise have picked up.

This one is sort of unusual in terms of books I've gotten as advanced copies. It's the first nonfiction book I've received, although it was also positioned as a kind of mystery/true crime read. The rating I'd give this book is more 3.5 than 4. It was a well written and about a topic I didn't really know that much about, so I learned some things I hadn't known, and the author's exploration of the misogyny inherent in a lot of the submarine community (both in the US Navy and in the amateur submarine building world) and the reasons behind it were quite well done, even if they made me pretty angry (I always get angry when I read about men who hate women for "invading" spaces they believe "belong" to them for some nonsensical reason).

The book is loosely framed around the murder of Kim Wall, a talented and well respected journalist who was murdered by Peter Madsen, a member of the personal submarine building community who was also deeply disturbed in a lot of different ways (and clearly thought a lot of his own genius). The author uses this as an entry point into a discussion of the personal submersible building community, which is overwhelmingly male, and whether or not being part of this community may have been part of what made Madsen into what he was.

The author discusses the history of submersibles of all sorts, going back to ancient times when Aristotle was discussing them and Alexander the Great was using them in his campaigns. It moves forward through the military use of submarines (and has a very good (and very infuriating) section about the US Navy and what happened when they finally allowed women to serve on subs in 2010), and then also discusses the OceanGate Titan, the submersible that imploded on its way to the Titanic.

The best parts of the books are the ones discussing the dynamics of the community, and the things that motivate many of the community members to do what they do (a lot of them escape to submersibles to get away from 'authority' or their real lives or anyone telling them what to do, whether in their personal lives or in the form of governmental authority), and the ones discussing the misogyny in the community and in the Navy (once again: men believing women are intruding on their territory, and that women should just put up with harassment and worse because boys will be boys and you can't expect them to act like grown adults and control their animal instincts). The other part I thought was very well done was the section on the OceanGate disaster.

This part was especially infuriating. It discusses the fact that the people on OceanGate died solely because one arrogant man thought the rules didn't apply to him and ignored common sense, necessary safety regulations and the advice of other members of the personal submersible community (including people who knew much more about them than him), taking his poorly built submersible far deeper than he should've. This also leads into a conversation about the way that the personal submersibles are now being turned into an industry that caters to billionaires who just want something cool and novel for themselves but have no interest in science or discovery or even a sense of wonder about being under the ocean.

This part yields one of my favorite quotes from the book, about how these people were essentially "being seduced by the deceptive charisma of a narrowly brilliant sociopath" when they fell for the OceanGate CEO's pitch about his rickety patched together sub with its hull that no one but him thought was actually safe. A lot of the world's problems are caused by this type of person talking everyone else into following their horrible plans.

The discussion of Kim Wall's murder was well done, and is threaded throughout the book. I appreciated that the author discussed Kim's talent and how much she had accomplished rather than just talking about how she became a victim of a disturbed (and again, incredibly egotistical) man. The act of murder itself is not fully discussed (the author does not describe the act with any specificity, which means that he avoids the uncomfortable sensationalism of a lot of true crime stuff and journalistic coverage). He instead talks about how the death affected Kim's parents, about how much people loved her.

I also liked the author talking about his own relationship with the ocean (he's afraid of it).

The main issue I had with the book is there are times when the author is trying a little too hard to add "context" or details and those details come off as pointless digressions shoe horned into make the passages seem profound (such as describing the attractiveness of a cafe owner who hands over security footage to the police or talking in detail about the morning routine of the prosecutor in the Wall murder). I don't mind adding detail to things like a courtroom scene, or to the passage where he talks about what happened when Madsen returned to shore after the trip where Kim disappeared, or about Kim walking to the interview prior to that fateful trip. That adds context to the main story, but telling me what other businesses are in the same building as the prosecutor's office feels like adding words in because he has to hit a goal. This would've been a solid 4 star if not for the number of times these little tangents took me out of the more interesting parts of the story he was telling.

All in all, though, a book that had some good information, and taught me a few things about a community and a history I didn't know much about.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this as a Goodreads giveaway. The work centers on the murder of journalist Kim Wall by an amateur submarine builder and enthusiast. The work also explored the culture of amateur submarine builders. Unfortunately the organization of the book leaves a lot to be desired. The events focusing on the murder and the true crime portion of the book are interspersed with interviews and tales of amateur submarine builders. The alternation is choppy and takes away from the central story. If there are other books about Kim Walls murder, I would recommend those rather than this work

[Jon Higgins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sub standard.

[Pooja Peravali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before the murder of journalist Kim Wall by inventor Peter Madsen hit international headlines, few had heard of the world of amateur submarines, a small but obsessive group chasing the chance to go ever deeper.

Like the author, I am very claustrophobic, and deeply suspicious of deep water, so of course the stories of spelunkers and divers fascinate me. And while I remember following the story of Kim Wall’s murder as it unfolded in the news, I didn’t follow it all the way until the end, and I know nothing about the wider community of submarine enthusiasts and how this story fit into it, so I was excited to dive in.

The author divides his attention between the crime and the community fairly evenly, showing how the problems that Madsen had with women and violence were intertwined with his enthusiasm for diving, where a man can command all he surveys and leave the strictures of society up on the surface. Frank’s uneasiness with his subject matter creates an interesting push and pull in his writing, especially as he’s not at all afraid to show exactly how out of his depth he is.

Though it’s a short book, Frank’s wide view means I feel that I learned a lot about many different aspects of the amateur submarine community, from the history to the social dynamics to possible issues with sexism. He also truly tries to get to know the story of Kim Wall, and his admiration of her as a person and a journalist shines through.

However, while the writing was lyrical, I did think it became a bit overwrought at times. There are some genuinely beautiful passages, sure. But he also attempts to emulate Kim Wall’s style of including vivid, off-kilter details to her reporting, but less successfully I thought, especially in long passages detailing the minutiae of locations or moments – it rather threw off the pacing of the read and left me out at sea. The case is the same with barely tangential passages about barely involved personages, which are maybe meant to add color but just left me cold.

Please disregard the number of submarine puns in this review – I really couldn’t help myself!

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[Lyndie Blevins · Rating 5 out of 5]

“To boldly go where no man has gone before.” If you ever wondered about the power these words have on you, then you should read Matthew Gavin Frank’s book, SUBMERSED.
This magical, creative non-fiction skillfully takes the reader on a deep dive into the world of the P-sub (personal submarine) community through interviews and the story of Kim Walls murder and the timely implosion of the Titan personal submarine.
But it is more than a true crime story, more than lessons on oceanography. Using his own fears and desires to push himself, Matthew reveals the story of humans drawn to know more than what they can see and touch.
It is a personal story as Matthew weaves his own experiences into the stories of the explorers of the sea and the sky, Kim Wall murder and touching on how a group of individuals could risk a dive to see the Titanic in a submarine with a history of only a few dives.
From Matthew’s research you as learn so much more about Jules Verne, geography and exploration.
While I read, I not only remembered reading Verne, but in 1961, sitting in the drive-in with my parents as we watched Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. It is about the world’s first atomic submarine which saved the world. Besides watching in amazement as Barbara Eden walked in high heels, there was the amazing moment when the large viewing window opened to see the large fish swimming by.
It was a privilege to have Matthew as a mentor and faculty member in my MFA program as he wrote this book. I’ve heard him lecture on his experiences writing the book and read from several sections of the book. From his tremendous knowledge of language, I swear, he must have been spelling bee contestant. He can use words in a way that you feel the meaning, but I enjoyed reading this in an electronic format, where I could click the dictionary button and learn even more.
Because, I know Matthew, this was such a personal read for me. I know when he would cock his head or run his fingers through his hair. I know his ability to face his fears. And I know how he can describe the world he sees in such beautiful terms.
This is a book that brings you face to face with the unknown, not just what is below the surface of the sea, but what lives below the surface of the heart

[Mme Forte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at the library because it's about something I never thought of before -- the personal submersibles community. And there's a true crime component as well. SCORE.

And it's not...bad.

Unsurprisingly, the (predominantly male) world of PSUB fanatics is composed of serious engineering types and a lot of...well, weirdos. Or at least guys who'd be considered weird by the mainstream world. In many cases, they don't care much about the mainstream world. They're preoccupied with building and diving their subs. Or at least that's how they come across in the book. See, I'm not sure about some stuff I read here, because the author has opinions and they definitely poke through.

The odd ducks of the PSUB world appear generally harmless -- except in the sense that they often seem unconcerned about their own safety underwater -- but one who wasn't is Peter Madsen, who is currently serving a life sentence in a Danish prison for the murder of journalist Kim Wall aboard his submarine in August 2017. I had heard of this horror, but didn't know much about it. Now, I know more. Or I'm pretty sure I do, because of the way the author recounts the events of that night from the perspective of Kim's partner, for one thing -- how does he know this stuff? There's no end notes citing sources for this information, and it's written like scenes from a novel, so who knows if it's accurate or it's impressionistic and based on speculation? This happened with a few of the people involved in the murder case and eventually it got tiring.

What this is: a glimpse of a world most of us have little or no contact with. It's also a ton of the author's impressions and personal experience, which...meh. I don't do a lot of narrative non-fiction, and maybe my impatience with this style is why.

Anyway, learned a lot, not sorry I read it, just...it felt more like a graduation project from someone in an MFA writing program.

[Karl Stanley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I am written about in said book and know many of the others that are. None of us are happy with how we were portrayed and have even been advised we have grounds to sue for slander and publishing juvenile medical records. Originally, MGF, intended this to be a more upbeat book, but then the OceanGate implosion happened and I think the opportunity was too great for the author to not capitalize on that. To support his thesis he portrays an entire niche community as murderers in waiting because of a sample size of TWO. Many of the other reviews speak of MGF's "lyrical" diversions that seem to do nothing more than drive up his word count. Some things he writes you get the impression he just likes throwing words together for the sake of being "lyrical" Example he described me as "Big bird on MDMA" What does that even mean ?? I would describe his writing style as "Oscar the Grouch on a coke bender" let me explain. Oscar is well known for being negative and cocaine is known for making people's moods unstable. MGF has mostly a negative theory he lays out for an entire community, based largely off 2 high profile murders and his own fear of drowning. As for his mood swings : he flies half way around the world to meet with the one living main character of his book, then changes his mind in the parking lot. Another data point, he had recurrent life-long nightmares of drowning. Dives in a homemade submersible and says it changed him, he thinks of it everyday, but he's never going underwater again. Submersed =not impressed.

[Pumpkin+Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have liked a book completely about the Psub community, with a few isolated asides about Peter Madsden's crime, or I would have liked a book completely about Peter Madsden's crime, with a few isolated asides about the Psub community as a whole. This book seemed to attempt to straddle both topics, which gave it some awkward pacing. The other Psub enthusiasts weren't really overtly compared with Madsden, but they also definitely weren't overtly contrasted with him, either, so I'm left with the impression that they mostly consist of guys who make stupid jokes, drink cheap beer, and who, if they have families, require their partners to shoulder most of the physical and emotional labor of the family while they tootle around the bottom of a bunch of gross lakes and bays and look at the underwater garbage.

I thought it was the most evocative how Frank looked at the Titan submersible implosion through the lens of the Psub message board. It makes sense, because the Titan guy was an idiotic businessman, not a Psubber, and because that tragedy has been explored through numerous other sources, looking at it from the perspective of personal submarine enthusiasts is an original take. I don't know that they had a ton to add to the conversation in the book, but I feel for hobbyists whose hobby is so heavily tarnished by one rich asshole.

[Stephanie Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book sounds like it's trying to do two things averagely. To be a documentary that looks in the personal submersible hobby, from a critical point of view, the only upside being that you can explore a bit of the depths of the ocean and see wondrous things. And to be a true crime novel, maintaining suspense by not talking about the main subject at hand, and just skirt around by instead going into how they feel, any historical references that are somewhat related, and surrounding bits and pieces of information that may or may not be directly related to the murder.

As I keep wading through the book to get to the story, I constantly feel lost, wondering where I am in the story only to realize I'm on one of the many off branches from the story. Expanding into character thought processes happen very often, and jump around different characters a lot, and occasionally a sudden deep dive into a certain topic. I find that I need to pay 200% attention to the book to really get a hold of it.

Listening to the audiobook is definitely a wild trip if your attention span jumps in and out.

The only good bits for me are the feminist themes, the random historical flashbacks. The book is written well, I just wish the story had an easier to follow structure.

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite museum spots has been walking through the U-505 submarine in the Griffin Museum in Chicago. There has always been something captivating about that experience each time I have gone through that boat. So when I came across this book - the author is coming to town tomorrow to discuss it) - I was intrigued. While the book focuses around the Kim Wall murder in 2017 in Denmark while attending to interview PSUB enthusiast, Peter Madsen (I remember reading about it), it also sheds light on the growing but small group of personal submarine enthusiasts and what it takes to build and operate one of these. Filled with history, underwater life and other “sea” facts as well as portraits of OSUB enthusiasts, the book paints a picture of how relatively crazy you must be to be involved in PSUBs and what makes one crazy enough to murder - as Madsen did. The book is beautifully written and quite captivating. Enjoyed the read.

[Becca Younk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always kind of frustrating when books are not marketed as what they really are. Just based on the title, you would think this is hard-hitting investigative journalism about Kim Wall's murder, and a look at who are these people obsessed with amateur submarines and why they do it. Frank's author bio states he's a poet, and that is hugely what is on display here. He writes beautifully and lyrically about the ocean, about the victim's life and family, and even about the oddballs who build submersibles in their backyards. I did enjoy this book, and his writing, I thought it was very respectful to Kim Wall's legacy, but it wasn't what I was expecting. I also didn't really want an investigation of the crime, as I've already seen The Investigation, which is a Danish miniseries about it, and which does not ever explicitly or show the murderer, which I appreciated. It's an interesting book with beautiful and empathetic writing, which is a nice change from normal true crime fair.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who would have thought that these two topics could be connected but here we are. Frank wanted to write about amateur submariners and in particular Marsden, but then he kept running into the story of the murder of Kim Wall and decided to write about the two-- how an introverted, intelligent engineer with a desire to plunge into the depths of the sea by building his own personal submarines then egregiously murdered Kim Wall only to have body parts emerge from the waters and lead back to Marsden who was put on trial.

And Frank is a writer first and foremost so he goes deep into ruminations and thoughts about a lot of subjects that are tangentially related to the subject, then sometimes not which is a meandering way of telling a story- so it can be compartmentalized as part biography, part murder mystery, part thriller, part true crime, part human interest story, part STEM innovation, part deep sea exploration.

[Bethany Mock (bethanyburiedinbooks) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you @prhaudio @pantheonbooks #partner for the gifted copy of this book!

⚓️Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines⚓️
Author: Matthew Gavin Frank
Pub Date: June 3, 2025

I occasionally like to torture myself by picking up a nonfiction book, and Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines by Matthew Gavin Frank definitely did the trick. Why do I do this? Because every time, my blood pressure goes through the roof — and this one was no exception.

First off, who really knows anything about the bizarre world of amateur submarines? Not me! But wow, this book was equal parts fascinating, disturbing, and infuriating. It dives (pun intended) deep into the claustrophobic, stifling, and downright terrifying world under the sea — a place already unsettling on its own — and then adds in the choices of certain men who essentially play God with people’s lives. Spoiler: it made me rage.

What really got under my skin was the misogyny in this world, with actual conversations about how women shouldn’t be allowed on subs because “men will be men” and apparently can’t control themselves. Are we kidding? Is this real life? The fact that people still spew this nonsense in modern times is wild.

And let’s talk about the cherry on top — the coverage of the 2023 Titan submersible disaster. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say… the public only got a fraction of that story, and a lot of what we were told was, unsurprisingly, not the full truth. My jaw was on the floor.

All that said, I love a book that teaches me something new while making me feel a thousand emotions at once, and this one delivered. If you’re in the mood for a wild, infuriating, and totally fascinating nonfiction deep dive (yep, another pun), definitely give this a shot!

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author’s writing was aggressively esoteric and generally just too poetic (which he does also write poetry, so that’s probably why)… he went off on so very many deeply (like SUPER DEEPLY) written tangents, some of which were on point (mostly) and some were were only VERY(very) loosely related. And, also, the chapters seem rather randomized, and so it felt very jumpy and choppy while reading. I saw a review of this in the NYT and thought this was going to be a true crime novel about a murder in the PSUB (personal submarine) world…. But it wasn’t really. It was about the uniqueness and oddity of the PSUB world, anything and everything lowkey related to the PSUB world, and a side story about a murder, of which the author wrote very confidently about details which I imagine he could not have known. Overall, I found this too be way too wordy and high-level and inaccessible to be interesting.