Where The Crawdads Sing - A Review

Title: Where the Crawdads Sing Author: Delia Owens

Genre: Literary Fiction Rating: 5 stars

Trigger Warnings: Sexual assault, child abuse and neglect, racial slurs, injury descriptions

Synopsis: For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.

This has undoubtedly been the best book I have read all year and in many years. I often applaud novels for their ability to craft an interesting and well-rounded work or have a plot with unexpected twists and turns. Those are marks of the ability to develop and tell a story. And while those make for excellent stories that are told well, this book truly means something.

“Lying there, Ma said [...] ‘That’s what sisters and girlfriends are all about. Sticking together even in the mud, ‘specially in mud.’”

…

“Where’re you now, Ma? Why didn’t you stick?”

This book is a journey. We learn most everything there is to know about our main character. She is left alone most of her life - from the age of seven - and like others, she suffers distrust when others leave her. But in her case, she only has so many encounters, making those departures even more heartbreaking. You simultaneously feel her loss and her strength tugging against each other.

We see Kya, of infinite worth, reduced to nothing but “swamp trash”. She struggles with feelings many of us have felt - does this person help me because they want something or because they actually care? - but because of the prejudice against her, those feelings are magnified. This book makes us take a long, hard look at our view of what we consider to be “other” and how we may consciously or subconsciously cause negative impacts on those around us.

“She feels the pulse of life because there are no layers between her and her planet.”

While I read this book in one long sitting, this is not the type of story that keeps you turning the page with a fast plot and intense action. It is a rolling, multi-decade story written with detail and care. There are flowing descriptions of the natural world, but they are not without purpose. The author shows us who Kya is, her beauty, her intelligence, her care for creatures through these passages.

This book has been described as both a romance and murder mystery but I find it to be neither. It is part literary fiction, part naturalist memoir, reminiscent of the writing of Aldo Leopold, Henry David Thoreau, and Annie Dillard. It is a story of self-discovery, loss, prejudice, and what it means to be human.