Note 3 : Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

What is it?

Published in the UK in 2019. 
Set in the 1950s and 60s in the coastal marshland of North Carolina, this is part whodunnit, part love story, part nature handbook. Place and time are important as the marsh - its flora and fauna, play a huge part in the book, as do the attitudes and prejudices of the period. The book’s central character is Kya, a girl whose story we follow from the age of 6 to her mid-twenties and later.  Abandoned by first her mother, then her adored brother and finally her abusive father, Kya survives and eventually thrives alone in the marsh. The who-dunnit element of the story concerns the investigation of the sudden death of a young local man Chase Andrews, found in the marsh in the opening chapter. The narrative jumps back and forward in time to detail Kya’s life, her relationship with the local community – in particular the two men with whom she has relationships -Tate and Chase – and the murder investigation.

Why read it?

We agreed that Kya's longing to be loved, to make contact with others, alongside her struggle to survive, were more interesting then the murder mystery and provided the driving force of the story.  However the strongest element for us were the vivid descriptions of the marsh landscape and the creatures inhabiting it. Much of these were beautifully written and, as the author is a wildlife scientist, no doubt accurate.  They filled what we felt was a gap in the book (see below)  rather as they fill the space left in Kya’s life after she has been abandoned by those she loves and becomes increasingly dependent on the gulls and nature around her.  

Why give it a miss?

In spite of all the publicity and hype about this book, most of us found it disappointing overall: one of us described it as a 'holiday read', another as an 'airport novel'!  We had misgivings about the plot. While elements of Kya’s story were interesting (see above) we found the story of Chase and Tate rather obvious and at times cliched. Beginning the book with the discovery of Chase’s body suggests the author wants us to work out both how he died and why. But for us the answers to this became obvious about midway through the book so the ‘reveal’ at the end fell flat. We also thought many of the characters were close to stereotypes - the policemen, Jumpin the shopkeeper and his wife Mabel, Chase himself. Other downsides were the great deal of repetition in the descriptions of Kya’s life in the marsh which risked becoming tedious; the irritating tendency to list the food everyone was eating and the clothes they wore, much of it, again, repetitive; some of us found the poems over-sentimental, irritating and unnecessary too. All this suggesting the book would have benefitted from stricter editing.  Lastly none of us believed that Kya,  as she had been depicted, could have carried out the complex manoeuvre required to perpetrate the crime.The secondary reveal about the poems' authorship definitely felt like over-egging the pudding.

What we asked

Is the account of Kya’s childhood in the wild believable?

Are the characters of Tate and Chase too stereo-typed as good and evil?

Did we believe Kya capable of the complex manoeuvres and timing required for her to carry out the crime?

Why did the writer choose to write this book?

Is the title apt?

What would the book need to make it a better read?

Was the ending satisfying?
Was it a page-turner?

Score

We scored it 1s and 2s so about 1.5 out of 5