NIGHTSTANDS & COFFEE TABLES

Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens | Review by Meredith McKinnie

“A great blue heron is the color of gray mist reflecting in blue water. And like mist, she can fade into the backdrop…she is a patient, solitary hunter, standing alone as long as it takes to snatch her prey.”

In the debut novel by Delia Owens, readers are swept into a love story, where the environment is the focus. A lifelong conservationist, Owens details the marsh with impeccable detail, raising to sainthood those who respect the environment and vilifying those who disrupt the order of things. The story focuses on Kya, “the Marsh Girl,” who after being left by all her siblings and parents drowning in circumstance, she is forced to raise herself alone in the marsh. Her instincts, keen observation and reaction to her surroundings, and uncanny ability to predict people’s actions with little interaction endears her to readers, along with her story as the ultimate underdog who survives unimaginable desertion. She is a wildling, her experience foreign to the so-called civilized, yet we recognize ourselves in her spirit. She is the kind of survivor we hope we would be.

Kya wants only to be loved, craves family, and though she has found comfort in solitude, she sacrifices herself in an effort to belong. She watches the normal girls from the safety of the tree branches, insisting, “Ma had said women need one another more than they need men, but she never told her how to get inside the pride.” She fears the risk of belonging as much as she wants to belong. A product of repeated rejection, she has no education, can’t read, and trades mussels for supplies and food. The relationship she builds with a black man experiencing his own alienation due to race allows her to survive apart from society. The kindness of a fellow marsh lover her age first opens her heart to friendship and eventually, romantic love. Her lack of understanding of society ensures she experiences heartbreak. As readers, our hearts break for the girl who deserves so much more than life will allow her.

The story is told in two parts, through alternating chapters. One details Kya’s development, while the other chronicles an investigation of a dead body found in the marsh years later. Kya’s connection to the suspected murder is as evident as her connection to the environment. The marsh exists almost like its own character, sticky, heavy and hot, meant to hide something. Owen’s writing showcases a respect for the marsh’s strength, saying: “Saltwater marsh can eat a cement block for breakfast,” and “Sand keeps secrets better than mud.” Owens weaves narrative description of a wild place with the story of a wildling, made better and purer by her wildness. She learns to love by loving, she learns to hurt by hurting, she learns to survive by surviving. Kya reminds us we are more alike than we are different