Tags
American fiction, American south, female protagonist, fiction, historical fiction, mystery, nature writing
Well, it’s been a while. It’s amazing how much time you don’t have when you are stuck at home during a pandemic. Even so, I’ve been reading, if not reviewing. But now that it looks like we’ll be staying at home for a while longer, I decided I should keep trying to catch up on my reviews.
Up next is last year’s runaway hit, darling of Reese’s Book Club, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Tailor-made for book clubs across America, Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya Clark, the “marsh girl” of Barkley Cove, North Carolina. In the 1950s and ’60s, Kya has grown up in the marshes outside of town, losing various members of her family until she has raised herself and becoming an expert in the local ecology and a legend among the townfolk. As she grows up, she catches the attention of two young men in the town, Tate and Chase, and begins to open herself up to relationships beyond her beloved marshland and wildlife. However, when one of the young men turns up dead, Kya is put on trial as the prime suspect.
I found this to be an interesting book. I know a lot of people loved it. I did not.
Owens’ background is as a conservationist, and you can tell both her expertise and her passion for nature in her descriptions of the natural world. Her language describing the marsh, the ocean, and the animals is vibrant and envelloping and is, frankly, one of the best parts of the book. I could read Owens talking about nature all day long. Even some descriptions of Kya read more like a biologist observing a particular animal in the wild, emphasizing Kya’s stronger connection to the natural world over human society. Additionally, I really enjoyed how the pace of the story was so closely tied to place. The story moved slowly at first, much like the marsh, and as the plot shifted more and more to the town, the pace picked up as well. In fact, I ended up reading the entire second half of the book in about 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon, especially as the action shifted more and more to the murder trial.
I also liked the structure of the book. Chapters alternated between the years Kya was growing up and the “current day” murder investigation and trial. It, like the pace, emphasized the age-old conflict of man vs. nature or, in this context, the townfolk vs. Kya. The structure also really set off the trial as a notably engaging part of the book. Though the preceeding investigation was a bit cursory and lazy, the trial itself was quite compelling, and Kya’s lawyer was sufficiently Atticus Finch-like without being too obviously referential. (Although, to be honest, that’s according to my notes–now I hardly remember the trail, while the nature-centric parts of the book remain more strongly in my mind.) In fact, Owen’s character development for several of her main characters was particularly strong. As mentioned before, descriptions of Kya straddle the line between conservation writing and fiction writing in a way that I found to be quite unique. Jodie, Kya’s brother, felt the least distinct out of all of the prominent characters, but even then only by comparison. Kya’s lawyer and Tate’s father, both of whom only appear a few times each in the novel, were surprisingly complex given their brief appearances.
That being said, Owens often relies on physical description and clothing to show character development or personality quickly, particularly with some of the secondary characters. It’s a bit lazy, particularly when a character’s speech feels at odds with his or her clothes and motivations ascribed to him or her, as is the case with the prosecutor at the trial. Additionally, Jumpin’, the primary black character of note in the novel and Kya’s only friend, often comes off as more of an idea than someone fully living in this place and time. Owens does not seem particularly adept at conveying an accurate experience of a black person in a segregated Carolina fishing village from the 1950s through 1970. She glosses over much of the discrimination he experiences, dropping in just one moment to exemplify the racism of the time yet choosing to show it from Kya’s perspective. As such, Jumpin’ ends up with more than a little dash of the “magical negro” archetype often found in film and literature.
Language, both the language of characters and how Owens herself uses language, is a major element of the novel. For several characters, language is foregrounded as a key value indicator, particularly when Owens writes accent phonetically. For example, a core part of Kya and Tate’s friendship is him teaching her to read and to “speak properly.” In fact, accent and the “correctness” of English is one of the main things that separates working-class Tate and his academic ambitions from Chase, the golden-child football captain who stays in town to work for his father and who does not need to speak “correctly” to achieve his goals and command adoration from the community. Even for Kya, her ability to speak “properly” ultimately is not enough for her to transition from the marsh to consistent human society, a major concern for both Tate and Chase, even though it is enough for her to build a career and attain financial independence.
Poetry is also heavily featured. Several characters “recall” particular poems at specific moments, but Owens doesn’t really do the work to connect the poems to anything. She just drops them in, often quite clunkily, and mostly uses them to telegraph emotions, particulary Kya’s. It’s, once again, a pretty lazy way to signal character. One poet is referenced almost exclusively in the second half of the novel, and though it is eventually revealed why this poet is so prominant, it all feels a little contrived, a little perfect, a little pat.
Honestly, it feels like Owens is writing for a movie deal. All of the language and physical description issues I mention above, which feel inelegant and amateurish in writing here, could be handled much more deftly on film. Part way through the book, Owens suddenly shifts to present tense for about a page-and-a-half. It is the only place in the entire book where it happens, and it is supposed to highlight the one time Kya can truly open up and be free. However, it reads like script directions and tonally is completely out of place. The final twist is, frankly, implausible, but it would be fun to shoot on film. And the last chapter reads exactly like one of those “what happened afters” over an end credits.
So I get why people liked Where the Crawdads Sing. It could be the next big Hollywood drama. And Owens absolutely has a talent for imagery and descriptions. Overall, though, I thought it was just…fine.