Life suspended amid the ordinary

A young woman collects her child from her mother, the baby-sitter, with no intention of returning home. Instead having taken cash from the joint bank account she shares with her husband, she sets off on a long drive to the coast. Her intention goes well beyond looking at the sea. Escape and freedom are her central concerns and she is careful to leave no clues. Her main connection to reality is the blinding headache crushing her head. Other than that there is an almost dreamlike quality to this strange, unnerving and exact study of physical and psychological sensation.

Marie Darrieussecq's third novel is a dramatic, cinematic, almost impersonal performance. It is also as unusual as each of her previous novels, the surreal black comic satire Pig Tales (1996) - a very good book - and My Phantom Husband (1998). We are told very little about the young woman, aside from her being blonde, thin, tense and obviously intent on her plan. As the woman appears to drift into another life, eating nothing, while still remaining aware of the need to distance her earlier existence, her little daughter plays and enjoys the summer novelty of life at the beach. Meanwhile the abandoned husband is tracking her through the services of an investigator.

Breathing Underwater is far more than a simple chase. Despite the fact this wife is on the run for reasons that are never made clear, it is urgent rather than tense. Darrieussecq is exploring perceptions, snatches of information, flashes of memory. This is a complex book in which the reader wanders in and out of the respective consciousness of the characters. The tone has the urgency of the continuous present tense in which the narrative is written, yet there is also a sense of reflection, of re-tracing footsteps.

As the characters engage in simple routines, whether it is sitting in the sun, selling ice cream, or watching and speculating - as the investigator does - a well-defined sense of the seaside town itself emerges. Darrieussecq's forensic fiction is curiously moral and certainly philosophical. She has a brilliant satiric instinct as is evident in Pig Tales, but she is also fascinated by states of mind.

Although this new book may lack the laconic deadpan grief of My Phantom Husband, it also catches that sense of life being suspended in the midst of ordinary activity. The action moves from one mind or consciousness to another. Coverdale's translation is true to Darrieussecq's taut, uncluttered French.

The most vivid characterisation is that of the central character's mother, a woman who sees herself as mother, grandmother and mother-in-law burdened by the responsibility of not being able to help her son-in-law. So intense are some of the images - many from the natural world - and sensations described it is as if the reader's face is pressed up against glass. The distorted clarity achieved by the most interesting young contemporary French writer ensures this odd, understated account is as original, if rather more ambiguous, than her previous books. Darrieussecq's cold humanity and intelligence continues to set her above many novelists who may share her obsessions but lack her daring, technical skill and unusual confidence.

Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times