Saturday, March 23, 2019

Review: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I'm part of the 1% who gave this book two stars on Goodreads. At the bottom I link to other Goodreads reviews which I looked at after I posted my review. I am not alone in not being wowed by this book.

Spoilers ahead, be warned

This is the story of Catherine Danielle Clark was known a Kya or The Marsh Girl by the people in the town of Barkley Cove on the coast of North Carolina. She and her family live in poverty in a shack by the water. When she is seven her mother walk out on the family and her brothers and sisters drift away as well. She is left with only her abusive alcoholic father. By age ten, her father has left and not returned leaving Kya alone. She avoids other people and spnds her time in her beloved march collecting. She is befriended by Tate, the son of a fisherman. Tate shares her love of nature and teaches her to read and brings her science books. When Tate, despite of promises, doesn't come back to her after leaving for college, she is devastated and returns to her solitary ways. Later, Chase, the son of owners of a Western Auto in town, decides to have some fun and begins grooming her. When Kya discovers that Chase is planning to marry someone else she breaks all contact with him. Kya has now been abandoned by her family and two men to whom she was attracted and she is confirmed in her desire to be left alone. With encouragement of Tate who does return but isn't able to rekindle their relationship, Kya sends her nature paintings to a publisher and is soon a published author in her early twenties. While she is on a trip to see her publisher, Chase is found dead at the base of an abandoned fire tower. The sheriff is able to get enough circumstantial evidence to build the case that Kya murdered Chase and she is arrested and brought to trial but is found not guilty and she returns to the marsh.

Crawdads has near universal acclaim and the film rights have been acquired by Reese Witherspoon so why am I an contrarian? The theme is a good one but there are just too many annoying details for me to be wowed. I think we are supposed to be swept away by the beauty of the writing to take notice of details that might jar the reader out of the story. More on that later.

The first what the hell event occurred early and made me wonder if the author had done any research on North Carolina or even looked at a map. Kya's father leaves her alone for several days to go to Ashville, NC to see about his disability pension.The story is set on the coast and Ashville is in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the far western part of the state. Later Tate tells Kya that his deceased mother and sister went to Ashville to get him a birthday present, Chase takes Kya with him when he goes to Ashville to get supplies for the store. Nope. Wouldn't happen. Ashville is not any kind of major metropolitan area where someone on the coast would go for services and supplies. To get there travelers would have to go past Greenville, Chapel Hill, Durham, the state capitol, Raleigh and Charlotte. It is such an absurd element to put in the story you have to figure that the author needed to have character go on a long trip or didn't look at a map.

The nature writing isn't consistent and goes from very nice to clunky and overwrought to field guide descriptions. The prologue is a good example of the author's nature writing.
Marsh is not a swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in the water, and water flows into the sky. Slow-moving creeks wander, carrying the orb of the sun with them to the sea, and long-;egged birds lift with unexpected grace —as though not built to fly — against the roar of a thousand snow geese. 
Then within the marsh, here and there, true swamp crawls into low-lying bogs, hidden in clammy forests. Swamp water is still and dark, having swallowed the light in its muddy throat. Even night crawlers are diurnal in this lair.

Then you get this:
Kya leaned over gently, as if to kiss a baby. The microscope's light reflected in her dark pupils, and she drew in a breath as a Mardi Gras of costumed players pirouetted and careened into view. Unimaginable headdresses adorned astonishing bodies so eager for more life, they frolicked as though caught in a circus tent, not a single bead of water.
One Goodreads reviewer commented how Kya becomes a man magnet after living alone, never seeing a doctor or dentist and with questionable hygiene. Her hair is likely to be a tangled mess and she is going to be pretty hairy compared to town girls. She gets her water from a hand pump meaning it is a shallow well and who knows what is in the water. It is difficult to believe that nothing happened to her, living as she does, that would require a doctor. I think it more likely that she would be smiling with rotted stumps.

And what about hurricanes? Five hurricanes struck North Carolina during the period this story is set. This includes Hurricane Hazel, a category 4 storm that struck in 1954. Ignoring that hurricanes are a danger to coastal North Carolina is to ignore a significant part of living on the North Carolina Coast.

When the book turns to Kya's relationships with Tate and Chase it becomes a rather poor teen romance. Goodreads reviewer Amy Watson described it as a Mills and Boone romance novel and another called it a bodice ripper. Amy also quotes this terrible bit of dialogue which isn't an isolated example

"I love you Kya, you know that. You've known it for a long time."
"You left me like all the others''
"I will never leave you again."
''I know.' She said."
"Kya do you love me? You've never spoken those words to me."
"I've always loved you. Even as a child- in a time I don't remember- I already loved you.

The best part of Kya relationship with Tate is when they left each other specimens on a stump. Chase, on the other hand, is a predator, grooming Kya for bragging rights for getting her virginity. I don't mind a bit of rumpy-pumpy but I thought the sex scenes in the book were poorly done.

The mystery surrounding the death of Chase could easily have been left out of the book. Spoiler: she did it and got away with it. In fact, I wish the author had used the space to actually develop Kya's character. If there has to be the murder then more backstory would have been nice. We know she felt betrayed by Chase but what was going through her mind to cause this shy and reclusive young woman to murder several years after she was betrayed. Did theyt have interactions we don't know about.

All-in-all it is a good premise not well executed. Maybe the film will be better.

Some of my favorite Goodreads reviews that I want to be able to find again:

JanB
Jessica Woodbury who calls Kya Manic Pixi Dream Girl in the Marsh
Lindsay Nixon who worked pluff mud into her review
Liza Fireman
Krista who found passages for me to quote so I didn't have to re-read
Hoolia who raised the issue of hurricanes and medical issues
Walker Doermann who raised the questin of Kya as man magnet.
Amy Watson who compares the later part of the book to a Mills and Boone novel
Anne who gives a feminist perspective
Julia who gives us some perspective from someone familiar with the area





1 comment:

  1. I've heard about this one, Mack, And, honestly, it doesn't appeal to me. And given what you said about the geography, I'm not wowed. I like literary writing when it flows well and is consistent. But that doesn't seem to happen here. Honestly, I'm not drawn to this one. But your review is excellent as ever.

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