Book (And Movie) Of The Month: Where The Crawdads Sing
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A highly compelling and intriguing read, Where the Crawdads Sing is a wild and inspiring fictional novel that centers around an untamed, solitary, and lonely child of the earth. It is the adult version of The Jungle Book, except that instead of being raised by wolves, Kya grows up in the shadowy depths of the North Carolina swamp, one with seagulls and quiet waters, way out where the crawdads sing, uninterrupted by human interference.
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Where the Crawdads Sing
Originally Published: 2018
Pages: 400
Available on: Kindle, Audiobook, Paperback
GET YOUR COPY HERE
Where the Crawdads Sing is a little bit of everything. It is a coming-of-age story, a romance, a mystery, a courtroom drama, a novel that studies family dynamic and understands the old South and Mother Nature well. It follows a young girl’s tumultuous and lonesome life as she grows from six years of age to twenty four in an aging, weathered shack deep in the harsh marshlands on the unforgiving North Carolina coastline. One by one, her mother and older siblings leave and never return or contact home, in order to distance themselves from Kya’s abusive father. She becomes known as the “Marsh Girl” around her small southern town and is outcasted for her lack of wealth, family, education, and social skills.
Shy and gentle, but strong-willed and fiercely determined, Kya finds solace in the solitude and silence of the swamp, studying the seashells, feeding and chatting with seagulls, and exploring the waterways of the swamp and coast. Self-reliance and independence become her mantra as she fends for herself, staying as wild and natural and free as the wind, nurturing the scars and wounds of abuse, neglect, and human abandonment. She finds a friend and first love in a kind, gentle local boy, who not only teaches her to read, but also to want human connections. He opens her eyes to the wealth of knowledge that is possible through reading books, which her natural curiosity and bright mind devours and propels her self-education. The swamp becomes her classroom.
The plot jumps back and forth from her childhood to the present, two separate but intertwining time periods that skillfully weave a fascinating storyline. Readers are privy to the extraordinary circumstances of Kya’s bare-bones childhood—fear, poverty, self-sufficiency in earning a tiny income, isolation from society, and her deep connection to the earth—but also the ordinary circumstances of a young girl becoming a woman: her sexual awakening, falling in love and being heartbroken, reveling in freedom, creativity, and nature. In the present, when Kya is 24 years old, a death in the nearest village occurs. Mysterious circumstances surround this handsome man’s death, leading authorities to suspect murder, which eventually entangle her and threaten the Marsh Girl’s solitary existence. Plot twists and cryptic events keep readers in the dark until the novel’s surprise ending.
The compelling plot leaves your eyes clinging to the pages as it switches back and forth in time, tauntingly offering new enlightenments of the mysterious death and Kya’s ever-changing, fascinating swamp lifestyle.
Delia Owen’s calming and whimsical writing style is balanced with natural knowledge of the swamp and its inhabitants, incorporating lovely, nature-centered poetry throughout the novel. The author’s deep love and understanding of natural ecosystems and animal nature is expertly conveyed, and Owen’s personal life only adds to the wonder of her first fictional novel. A wildlife scientist based in North Carolina, Owens spent twenty-three years of her life on the plains of Africa, studying elephants, lions, and more, authoring three other best-selling works of non-fiction. Her time in Africa inspired a desire to write this novel, as she was particularly interested in the behaviors of female lions craving and relying on the company of other females in the lion pride. The author meant Where the Crawdads Sing to be her own study of human nature, based off of her research, observation, and reflection. And, as she puts it:
“I began to realize how isolation can affect a person… Humans have a genetic pull to belong to a group, but women feel it acutely because it flows through our blood… I began to wonder what would happen to a young woman deprived of a troop… Since we inherit much of our behavior, how does someone, forced to live beyond our genetic map, behave? For example, if a young girl had to grow up mostly alone, how would rejection, discrimination, and isolation change her?”
Published in 2018, the novel made the New York Times Fiction Bestseller list in 2019 and 2020. Even better news—it is to be released as a major motion picture on July 13, 2022, and promises to do the novel great justice! The movie is directed by Olivia Newman, features well-known actress Daisy Edgar-Jones, and has a soundtrack that includes a hit from Taylor Swift. We totally recommend the duo of reading this novel and watching the new film- whichever one you find you want to do first.
Where the Crawdads Sing is a great story to get lost in, and I found myself wishing it was even longer and that Owens had gone more in-depth with the story. You will enjoy this novel (and vice versa!) if you have previously enjoyed Educated by Tara Westover and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, which was one of our former Books of the Month.