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The Deep
Set in Detroit during the Depression, Doerr tells the affecting story of Tom, meant to die of a weak heart before he is 18, who is cossetted by his mother, but shown a world of possibilities by the flame-haired Ruby.
Fast Fiction: A selection of masterful short stories from 4th Estate short story collections, and the best talent from The Sunday Times authors, available to purchase as single story ebooks.
Fast Fiction: A selection of masterful short stories from 4th Estate short story collections, and the best talent from The Sunday Times authors, available to purchase as single story ebooks.
20 pages
First published January 1, 2010
3 people are currently reading
1466 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Doerr
54 books25.4k followersAnthony Doerr is the author of six books,
The Shell Collector
,
About Grace
,
Memory Wall
,
Four Seasons in Rome
,
All the Light We Cannot See
, and
Cloud Cuckoo Land
. Doerr is a two-time National Book Award finalist, and his fiction has won five O. Henry Prizes and won a number of prizes including the Pulitzer Prize and the Carnegie Medal. Become a fan on Facebook and stay up-to-date on his latest publications.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 17, 2018
Set in Detroit during the Great Depression, The Deep is an award winning story of Tom, a boy who grows up in a boardinghouse. At the age of 4, Tom is diagnosed with a severe heart condition and a lifespan of only sixteen ; eighteen if he’s lucky.
He faints regularly and his mother keeps him safe at home in order to prevent anything that might excite him.
He befriends a fiftysomething kind salt miner who rents a room in his mother’s boardinghouse, and a girl from his school, Ruby, an exciting girl who wants to become a diver.
While growing up, Tom will have to choose the sort of life he wants to live, and to sort out to what extent he’s willing to risk his life in order to have a life.
This short story won the prestigious The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award in 2011. You can find all the award winning stories (2010-2017) on : https://shortstoryaward.co.uk/winners.
He faints regularly and his mother keeps him safe at home in order to prevent anything that might excite him.
He befriends a fiftysomething kind salt miner who rents a room in his mother’s boardinghouse, and a girl from his school, Ruby, an exciting girl who wants to become a diver.
While growing up, Tom will have to choose the sort of life he wants to live, and to sort out to what extent he’s willing to risk his life in order to have a life.
This short story won the prestigious The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award in 2011. You can find all the award winning stories (2010-2017) on : https://shortstoryaward.co.uk/winners.
October 18, 2018
A beautifully written short story.
November 27, 2018
This is the most beautiful and heartfelt piece of fiction that I have ever read.
November 25, 2023
This is a very touching short story about a boy who knows his life won’t be a long one. What beautiful, rich writing. I’m blown away. This is my first Doerr and it won’t be my last. What a storyteller he is. It’s almost too much - such richness feels like the literary equivalent of gorging on 15 banquets-worth of food in one sitting. Does he need to learn to rein it in and allow the images he’s created in your mind to spread out and find space? Perhaps. But I loved it. It’s realist fiction with a touch of magic that feels fairytale-like.
April 10, 2020
Where do I start with The Deep? Such a depressing yet beautiful story. I had so many unknown words which was kind of annoying (I'm not a native English speaker) but I didn't mind, because both the storyline and the language were extraordinary.
So poetic, so romantic.
"See, he murmurs to Mr. Weems, how the flowers closest to it are brightest? See how the closest leaves are the darkest green?"
"I don't feel so shortchanged when I'm with you, he says, but his voice breaks at short- and the sentence falls apart."
God, this man has managed to capture some of my deepest sentiments and he doesn't even know. I haven't read anything by Doerr before, but I definitely will now. Oh, and if someone decides to make this story into a movie, please, please, please, don't fuck it up. But please do make it into a movie, it could turn out AMAZING.
So poetic, so romantic.
"See, he murmurs to Mr. Weems, how the flowers closest to it are brightest? See how the closest leaves are the darkest green?"
"I don't feel so shortchanged when I'm with you, he says, but his voice breaks at short- and the sentence falls apart."
God, this man has managed to capture some of my deepest sentiments and he doesn't even know. I haven't read anything by Doerr before, but I definitely will now. Oh, and if someone decides to make this story into a movie, please, please, please, don't fuck it up. But please do make it into a movie, it could turn out AMAZING.
December 17, 2018
This story gives hope to the pessimist and to those who have an ominous foreboding or rather know that their life will not last as long as others. Make the most of what you have and enjoy life to the fullest for it’s not quantity but quality.
Doerr’s writing style creates effortless reading with warm juicy phrases that jump off the page like candy for the reader. His depth of historical research is remarkable.
Doerr’s writing style creates effortless reading with warm juicy phrases that jump off the page like candy for the reader. His depth of historical research is remarkable.
February 23, 2024
it’s like a really short read but it’s really really good!! the way the tom describes his world for living such a dull life at the beginning is honestly really pretty and the tone shift when he’s depressed unfocused on the world with minimal to no descriptions is really smart writing imo
anyways i’m so upset that he and ruby were doomed by the narrative :(
yall should read it papspspsps
anyways i’m so upset that he and ruby were doomed by the narrative :(
yall should read it papspspsps
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 17, 2021
Absolutely stunning writing. Brought tears to my eyes with the emotion Mr. Doerr is able to capture in his writing. Very meaningful and eye opening piece would greatly recommend you consider reading it and to really put yourself into Tom’s shoes and see the world in a way you might not see it now.
December 5, 2024
The writing has a sort of whimsical and dreamlike quality that really resonates with me - the deep ocean and the salt mine deep below the earth creates a fascinating parallel, one a dream, the other crushing reality.
August 31, 2019
Excellent short story - deserves a second read
February 22, 2020
Amazing!
July 25, 2023
So beautiful and so sad, easily one of the BEST shorts ive ever read. im also a sucker for dialogue presented in italics
December 30, 2025
As light cannot exist without dark, birth cannot exist without death. This is, arguably, the beauty of life: life is continuous, ever-changing and evolving through the centuries, yet each individual only receives one chance to live their life before their ultimate death. To most, death is an underlying- usually ignored- cloud throughout their lives. For others; people with chronic illnesses, ones who lost relatives at a young age, orphans and other unfortunate souls; death is a constant thundercloud, steadily pouring rain, occasionally letting up but always there. Such is the case of Tom, the protagonist in Anthony Doerr’s short story, “The Deep”. Tom is born with an “atrial septal defect”- a hole in his heart- that affects his daily health in the form of frequent faintings, spotty vision, shortness of breath, and more. Tom was born in Detroit during the early 1900s and was immediately exposed to death and other negative things as a child, such as an absent father and living through the Great Depression. Throughout “The Deep”, Doerr introduces the parallel themes of birth and death in order to emphasize the surprising beauty of life that makes it so meaningful and worthwhile to truly live.
Almost immediately into the story, “The Deep” carries a somber tone to it, as readers anxiously await the eventual death of Tom. Tom is diagnosed with his illness at the young age of four and is told he has sixteen years of life, “eighteen if he’s lucky”. This diagnosis is something that is repeated throughout the story, giving the story suspense and also acknowledging the continuing presence of death throughout that rules Tom’s life and decisions. When Tom is twelve, his classmate Ruby Hornaday gives the class a presentation about the ocean and passes around a book with pictures of the sea, causing “Tom’s heart [to] boom in his ears” and suffer a fainting spell after he cannot breath. This instance represents a turning point in Tom’s life: his mother withdraws him from school and confines him in his room, yet he secretly meets up with Ruby at the marsh and begins taking risks. His doctor instructs him to think of the color blue to calm down, but he finds himself instead envisioning the “glowing white of the salt tunnels, the red of Ruby’s book, the orange of her hair”, all the things that to him symbolize freedom, adventure, and living life to the utmost fullest. He runs and laughs with Ruby and lives in the moment without fear of death until the last Tuesday of October in 1929. The Stock Market crash. Doerr explains how the crash affects Tom personally, as Ruby supposedly moves away, Mr. Weems is let go, Tom’s mom falls sick, etc. He uses these instances of tragedies to fully emphasize the hardships of Tom’s life, which contrast with the contentment and peace he later finds towards the end of his life.
By the time he’s twenty, past the estimated age of his diagnosed lifespan, Tom finds himself going through the motions of life rather than living them. Thanks to help from Mr. Weems, Tom ironically gets a job working in a maternity ward, where he is exposed to birth and life on a daily basis. On his first day there, a coworker states that, although the “world goes to Hades…babies still get born”, symbolizing the theme of beauty within death and life both. Tom realizes that he has not been living his life to the fullest and he consequently begins recognizing signs of happiness and beauty within the world, through things such as babies being born, Mr. Weems, and more. In the last bit of the story, Tom sees Ruby in the maternity ward after she gives birth to her baby. Tom invites her to the aquarium, and she accepts. When they’re catching up, Tom marvels at the concept of life, saying that “life is the one thing in the world that never runs out…And we’re all very lucky to be part of something like that.” Tom ends up dying a day later, having lived and learned more in that past month than his whole life.
Doerr utilizes short sentences and a play-like narrative to keep the story moving at a fast pace, similar to Tom’s short life. Although his life was so short and he faced hardships, he eventually learned to love his life or at least live it. Doerr shows that what makes life so meaningful is its equal abundance and rarity, as you are surrounded by it but only get one chance to do it right.
Almost immediately into the story, “The Deep” carries a somber tone to it, as readers anxiously await the eventual death of Tom. Tom is diagnosed with his illness at the young age of four and is told he has sixteen years of life, “eighteen if he’s lucky”. This diagnosis is something that is repeated throughout the story, giving the story suspense and also acknowledging the continuing presence of death throughout that rules Tom’s life and decisions. When Tom is twelve, his classmate Ruby Hornaday gives the class a presentation about the ocean and passes around a book with pictures of the sea, causing “Tom’s heart [to] boom in his ears” and suffer a fainting spell after he cannot breath. This instance represents a turning point in Tom’s life: his mother withdraws him from school and confines him in his room, yet he secretly meets up with Ruby at the marsh and begins taking risks. His doctor instructs him to think of the color blue to calm down, but he finds himself instead envisioning the “glowing white of the salt tunnels, the red of Ruby’s book, the orange of her hair”, all the things that to him symbolize freedom, adventure, and living life to the utmost fullest. He runs and laughs with Ruby and lives in the moment without fear of death until the last Tuesday of October in 1929. The Stock Market crash. Doerr explains how the crash affects Tom personally, as Ruby supposedly moves away, Mr. Weems is let go, Tom’s mom falls sick, etc. He uses these instances of tragedies to fully emphasize the hardships of Tom’s life, which contrast with the contentment and peace he later finds towards the end of his life.
By the time he’s twenty, past the estimated age of his diagnosed lifespan, Tom finds himself going through the motions of life rather than living them. Thanks to help from Mr. Weems, Tom ironically gets a job working in a maternity ward, where he is exposed to birth and life on a daily basis. On his first day there, a coworker states that, although the “world goes to Hades…babies still get born”, symbolizing the theme of beauty within death and life both. Tom realizes that he has not been living his life to the fullest and he consequently begins recognizing signs of happiness and beauty within the world, through things such as babies being born, Mr. Weems, and more. In the last bit of the story, Tom sees Ruby in the maternity ward after she gives birth to her baby. Tom invites her to the aquarium, and she accepts. When they’re catching up, Tom marvels at the concept of life, saying that “life is the one thing in the world that never runs out…And we’re all very lucky to be part of something like that.” Tom ends up dying a day later, having lived and learned more in that past month than his whole life.
Doerr utilizes short sentences and a play-like narrative to keep the story moving at a fast pace, similar to Tom’s short life. Although his life was so short and he faced hardships, he eventually learned to love his life or at least live it. Doerr shows that what makes life so meaningful is its equal abundance and rarity, as you are surrounded by it but only get one chance to do it right.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 17, 2016
What an Incredible story! I re-read it again last night......
Amazing!
Amazing!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews