Close your eyes. Okay now open them because obvi you need them to read this. Now think about the saddest thing you can think of—puppies dying, children crying, your local bodega running out of Ranch Doritos, what have you. Now multiply that thing times a million. A billion, even. Wrap it in a layer of terminal illness, crimes against humanity and the possible absence of a benevolent God. Only now—having duly considered the sheer tragedy and injustice of the universe—are you even remotely approaching the inherent and heart-wrenching sadness of Wave.
On vacation with her family in Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala is merely perturbed when on the morning of December 26, 2004, waves can be seeing crashing over the usually calm beachhead outside their hotel. Within minutes she realizes what’s happening—the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami we would later learn killed more than 200,000 was about to hit, and she had minutes, maybe seconds, to get out.
Grabbing her children and her husband, Deraniyagala runs outside, failing to stop and warn her parents—staying in the room next door—of the impending catastrophe. It ultimately doesn’t matter. In the ensuing tidal wave, which floods the Jeep in which Deraniyagala and her family are attempting escape, Deraniyagala’s children and husband die. Her parents’ death—a given, as they never escaped the ultimately-leveled hotel—is just icing on the world’s shittiest cake.
For her part, Deraniyagala is tossed around in the Jeep and ultimately comes to—albeit, still in shock. She is rescued moments before being washed out to sea. Deraniyagala spends a hollow-eyed few days trolling the local hospital, waiting for her family to join the scores of survivors camped out there, but also somehow knowing they won’t. Several weeks after the wave, their bodies are identified, and so begins Deraniyagala’s decade-long grieving process, outlined in Wave, a slim but impactful memoir.
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