Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Set in the 1960s North Carolina scrubland, Where the Crawdads Sing is simultaneously a lyrical ode to nature and a murder mystery rolled into one, making it categorically difficult to place. But don’t we just love that? (Or is that just me?).
Kya Clarke is abandoned at a young age by her abusive father and left alone to raise herself on the outskirts of town. Nicknamed "the Marsh Girl" by the community, her solitary life is focused on scraping by until, as a young woman, she is accused of murdering a local man whose body is found in the marshland.
The novel is richly written; decadent descriptions of the environment, food and all manner of creatures sing straight to my soul. The narrative pulls along thanks to the whodunit murder case, while the coming-of-age subplots of identity and romance provide emotional depth to this familiar tale.
It is the love note to the natural realm, however - the true honoring of interconnectedness between beings and ecosystems - that makes this book stand out. Owens’ knowledge as a zoologist permeates the text. Kya studies fish, learns from the earth; her attention soars to the skies with the herons and hawks. This character’s relationship with the land and water is alive and rich; only her material existence is poor.
I felt this book, in that the writing was visceral and really dug into my skin. It doesn’t beat around the bush. There’s poverty - real poverty - as well as abuse, neglect, love, murder, sex, prejudice, loneliness and all the grittiness of life. Unlike the film adaptation, which dilutes a lot of this to conform to typical Hollywood-esque palatability, Owens’ story delivers a shimmering mosaic of human experience in all its mess and glory.
Widely read and a popular book club choice, this novel is a slow, sinking escape into the evocative waters of what it means to belong. It’s a heartfelt tale and rapidly became one of my favorite books.
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