Named a best book of the year by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Seattle Times, Shelf Awareness, & Booklist

"By far the best love story I've read for a long time . . .
If you despair of the vigor and grace of modern fiction, read this."
--Cynthia Crossen, Wall Street Journal

"Mr. McNeal’s characters are full and knowable. His sentences are the strong, silent type: generous without being showy. And his novel is, quite simply, lovely."
--The New York Times

"An immensely involving love story that will make your heart race, leap and sing. "
--Melissa Katsoulis, UK Telegraph

"beautifully written . . . Judith and Willy are never less than engrossing."  Herald-Sun (Australia)

"Exquisitely heartbreaking."--Family Circle

"This lovely novel is quiet and smart, drawing you so deeply into the characters that the ending might just leave you coming up for air."
--O Magazine

". . . hypnotic . . . Heartbreaking, messy and incredibly sad, To Be Sung Underwater is so vividly written that it takes you to a place where all your perceptions seem dizzyingly altered.  Which is, of course, exactly like love itself."
--Caroline Leavitt, The Washington Post

Winner of the Nebraska Book Award

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Judith Whitman always believed in the kind of love that "picks you up in Akron and sets you down in Rio." Long ago, she once experienced that love. Willy Blunt was a carpenter with a dry wit and a steadfast sense of honor. Marrying him seemed like a natural thing to promise. 

But Willy Blunt was not a person you could pick up in Nebraska and transport to Stanford.  When Judith left home, she didn't look back.
Twenty years later, Judith's marriage is hazy with secrets.  In her hand is what may be the phone number for the man who believed she meant it when she said she loved him. If she called, what would he say? 

'To be Sung Underwater' is the story of a woman trying to remember and the man who could not forget.

Available in paperback, hardcover, audio, and as an ebook, To Be Sung Underwater has been translated into Chinese, French, and Italian.