![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/crawdads.jpg\")
<\/a>Delia Owens did not write a North Carolina novel; she created a North Carolina marvel. She has dovetailed into a single book a coming of age novel, superb nature writing, a love story, a survival tale, a murder mystery and a courtroom drama, all set in the coastal marsh of North Carolina.<\/p>\nOut yonder, where ships crash \u201clike paper hats,\u201d an abusive man, damaged by World War II, moves his family into a ramshackle cabin. One by one, the family escapes, leaving the youngest child, Kya, alone with him. She survives \u201c…like a minnow. Just keep out of the way, don\u2019t let him see you, dart from sunspots to shadows.\u201d\u00a0 When Kya is only 10, he disappears as well, leaving her where the crawdads sing, \u201c…far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters.\u201d\u00a0 Avoiding authorities \u201clike a minnow,\u201d\u00a0she learns \u201c…wonders and real-life knowledge she would\u2019ve never learned in school\u2014 \u201cThe marsh became her mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Into this world enters a boy, Tate, who encounters her just as her body shows \u201c…inklings and foothills of womanhood.\u201d\u00a0 He provides her companionship she has never known, and the ability to read. During the time they spend together, her reading articulates what she carries in her blood and bones \u2014 the forces behind the deceptive flicker of fireflies that devour their own, the disguises that inferior males take on to prey on females and how a mother can leave her children.<\/p>\n
Tate leaves her as well, but she has more than knowledge from her reading as solace \u2014 she has poetry to manifest her solitude. Quotes from Emily Dickinson, Galway Kinnell, and a woman named Amanda Hamilton punctuate the text. \u201cI didn\u2019t know a sentence could be so full,\u201d she gasps when she first reads a poem. Indeed, the same can be said of the author\u2019s writing. She fills the pages with lyrical phrasing:\u00a0 \u201cDeath\u2019s crude pluck, as always, stealing the show; \u201cHe whispered his hands against her inner thighs;\u201d \u201cI know feathers,\u201d Kya says to Tate.<\/p>\n
At the center of the book lies a murder that colors the narrative as it moves back and forth from the investigation and Kya\u2019s backstory. Colors, informs, but does not distract \u2014 it is only a piece of the questions Kya encounters in her exploration of how \u201cSome parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive way back yonder.\u201d\u00a0 The culminating courtroom drama develops with exceptional tension, leading a character to burst out when the verdict arrives: \u201cWould somebody read it to us!\u201d<\/p>\n
What happens in the conclusion may not surprise you, but how it happens will. Most likely, it will send you back to re-read sections of the book, to savor in a new light what already was remarkable. Where The Crawdads Sing\u00a0<\/em>is a fine place to visit, and then reflect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bob Moyer has visited my territory, reviewing a new novel set in coastal North Carolina. I’m glad he did. I’m eager to read this one myself. Now if we could just get Bob to come visit these marshes in person… Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING. By Delia Owens. G. P. Putnam\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[136,1071,1072],"class_list":["post-2397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary-literary-fiction","category-southern-fiction","tag-contemporary-fiction","tag-delia-owens","tag-north-carolina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2399,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions\/2399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}