Review by Jennifer Graham
A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick
I can't even express how much I love this book! I didn't want this story to end!
— Reese Witherspoon
I recently finished reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. It debuted in August 2018 and has sold more than 1.5 million copies. A #1 New York Times bestseller – it is an emotional story I will carry with me awhile. Here’s the description of the book from the inside of its cover:
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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. Through Kya's story, Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
It’s about Catherine Danielle Clark “Kya” growing up isolated in a shack in a swamp near a small town, Barkley Cove. The book is told in twin timelines with the story of Kya enduring life alone in the wild and a murder mystery of a popular town resident. In fact, it opens with the murder investigation, and then switches to Kya’s mother walking down the road and abandoning her to a life with an abusive, alcoholic father. Her mother leaves and she is left with her father and her older sibling, Jodie, (after 3 others have already left) who also walks out one day. Kya’s only 7 and left to pretty much fend for herself since her dad disappears for days sometimes weeks at a time. He eventually disappears altogether and we can only assume he dies in a bar fight our something sordid. She literally has nothing to eat some days. People in town regard swamp residents as trash and refer to her as “the Marsh Girl” or marsh trash. As you read through the book it becomes painfully clear they are prejudice towards her through their slurs and unwillingness to either acknowledge her or help her. She attends school for one day and can’t bear to go back due to her treatment. She only goes to town when she’s starving and desperate. Her only friends in the first half of the book are Jumpin’ and his wife Mabel – black residents who live in a segregated area of town, deep in the woods. Jumpin’ owns a bait shop and gas station on a dock and Kya survives by selling mussels and smoke fish for his customers.
“The marsh did not confine them but defined them and, like any sacred ground, kept their secrets deep.”
“What d’ya mean, where the crawdads sing? Ma used to say that.” Kya remembered Ma always encouraging her to explore the marsh: “Go as far as you can—way out yonder where the crawdads sing.”
“Just means far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters.”
It’s a story of her relationships with 2 men from town over the years. One is a childhood crush, Tate, and the other is the murder victim, Chase Andrews. She’s known Tate since she was very young as he was a friend of her older brother Jodie. Chase is the town’s golden boy – high school quarterback – she watches from afar forever. Both mistreat her but in different ways. Once Chase is found murdered, (SPOILER) she becomes the sole suspect and is put in jail for months and on trial. I found this part of the book pretty painful to read. She’s for the most part a wild creature and belongs in nature and to be locked up with only a small window for months is unbearable.
I enjoyed the book. It’s engrossing and I stayed up late into the early hours reading. However, I had issues with it too. It can be very repetitive at times describing Kya’s views of nature. It gets hammered home her love of the marsh. Beautiful but repetitive. It’s a very southern town yet the towns’ residents don’t speak in much of a southern vernacular only the black community or Kya when she was young. Her language grows to be very sophisticated after she’s taught to read by Tate yet the transition is fast and a little jarring at times. Her friendship with Jumpin’ is key to the book and I would’ve liked to learn more about his life. The tale of the murder is problematic. You’ll need to suspend reality a bit to make it work.
I’d recommend reading it, especially if you have an interest in ecology and marshes because it truly was educational to learn about living things we sometimes don’t see simply due to not knowing they are there. It’s difficult to watch Kya’s losses – devastating at times – unfold over the years, but her life is worthwhile. And there are surprises along the way. The true key relationships endure.
“Let’s face it, a lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.”
