“Where The Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens
If you are a reader who prefers beautifully detailed setting and description rather than consistent character and satisfying payoffs, this is the book for you. Where the Crawdads Sing wasn't a bad read, but Owen's experience as a non-fiction nature writer shines through.
For years, rumours of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.
This book started promisingly with two interwoven strands. In 1952, six-year-old Kya is left alone to fend for herself in the harsh Carolina swamps. Gradually she learns everything she needs to survive, while becoming a figure of ridicule and fear in the local town. Then, in 1969, a now adult Kya becomes the main suspect/scapegoat in a local murder.
These opening chapters are actually engrossing. Yes, there is a little too much research crammed in at times. You don't need the author bio to tell you Owens has studied this kind of nature on a professional level. But mostly, she manages to present it in a way that creates a real, tactile sense of the world we're in. And then the initial 1969 sections tease us with a little more about how this kind of girl will grow up into someone outside of society and what will happen when they eventually clash.
Unfortunately, at around the halfway point, the story lost me. And there were two reasons this happened.
Firstly, once Kya grows up, she loses all character. As a child, she feels real. She's learning from memories, luck, and intuition. She becomes part of the world around her. She's interesting.
But once the coming-of-age plot kicks in, Kya loses all individuality. A huge part of this is her losing her dialect. I know this is supposed to be part of her trying to grow up and fit in, but it just felt to me like Owens had got bored of it. Losing the accent complete pulled her out of the world.
The second problem was the incredibly disappointing murder mystery plot. I enjoyed it at first, with the difficulties of finding evidence in the swamp and the prejudices of the small town. But then it lost all energy. It did pick up again a bit at the end but then proceeded to flop over the finish line in the most unsatisfying way possible.
There is a very good book here. It just becomes too unfocused. If it had remained focused on Kya and her life in the swamps, or one the murder mystery, it could have worked. As it is, it comes across as a coming-of-age story told by someone who doesn't quite remember what coming-of-age was actually like, with an unnecessarily courtroom drama tack onto the last few pages.
