This story of a six-year-old child left to fend for herself in a Carolina swamp when her stereotype swamp-trash likker-sluggin' pa finally doesn't come home again (we're not told why - hopefully an alligator ate him), is an exercise in cliches. We are asked to believe that this beautiful (natch), sensitive, artistic blah blah little girl raises herself from barefoot illiteracy to womanhood and published fame as a naturalist, with three self-illustrated books on marshland flora and fauna. She is taught to read and overnight to abandon her swamp patois for highbrow English by, gosh, a boy who falls in love with her, and manages to educate her to university level with some textbooks. Said boy, having achieved this Pygmalion-like transformation, then departs to do his own high-class degree, promising to return to his true love, who hangs around the swamp waiting. But he doesn't return because alas! he realises she is a wild creature, a child of nature who would never fit into civilisation, and so on. So he passes on coming back to claim her and Swamp Girl's heart broken. She has a fling with the baddie of the piece, another walking cliche - handsome, privileged, all the girls want to go to the prom with him - and predictably he breaks her heart by marrying an appropriate girl who wears shoes and pearls. Really at this point I was ready to give up on the novel, but there is a murder involved and I wanted to find out whodunnit. The murder itself is just a device and fails hopelessly. The trial is ludicrous, the murder allegations are based on evidence that no prosecuting counsel, fictional or otherwise, would have even remotely considered sound, and the attempts to build suspense during the jury's deliberations are just plain silly.
If this flimsy and wholly ridiculous plot line were in any way to be redeemed, it might have been through quality of writing because of the interesting environment of the swamp and its wildlife, but even in this the novel fails. The only passable passages are indeed the ones in which Ms Owens describes the swamp life. The dialogue is ridiculous, the love scenes are stitched together out of worn-out cliches, and the suspension of disbelief required of the reader is just asking way too much.
I have no doubt that Delia Owens is an excellent naturalist and ecologist and an asset to her field. But as a novelist, she doesn't cut it. Don't waste your money on this book.
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Poignant novel set in NORTH CAROLINA
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 March 2019
“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot”For months now – since it was the September 2018 Reece Witherspoon Hello Sunshine Book Club choice – I have seen nothing but glowing reviews of this seminal novel. It will, I am sure become a classic in its own right (there, I have already given away how I feel about the book!). The actress has also optioned the film rights for it.This is the story of Kya, shortened from Catherine Danielle, who lives in the swampy marshes of North Caroline, not far from Asheville. Her mother walked out on her when she was young and she still has visions of her departure, suitcase in hand, faux snakeskin shoes, tripping her way down the track and out of sight. Her older siblings have also abandoned life in the little homestead, leaving her with her oftentimes drunk and violent father; he is around less and less as he fritters away any income, there is money neither for food nor clothes. To all intents and purposes she is abandoned by those who are important in her life and she is tasked with raising herself, this little “marsh girl” who has nothing in her life but the nature surrounding their hovel. The birds and wildlife are her companions. Oh, and she has access to her father’s small boat which gives her some mobility. She is adept at cruising the waterways.Years pass and her loneliness becomes entrenched. Tate is drawn to this skinny young girl but ultimately he forsakes her for his studies, leaving her abandoned once again. Soon she is befriended by Chase, a dapper young man about town, a womaniser and who, we know, is found dead at the outset of the novel lying at the bottom of the Fire Tower. Natural suspicion amongst the nearby townsfolk falls on Kya because she is an oddball, she lives in poverty, she is different…. and she is female. Remember this is a time in American history when there was discrimination against anyone who was different to the overwhelmingly white populace. The author has an acute eye for capturing people, prejudices and small town life.Kya, surrounded by the natural world starts to record what she sees and experiences. This holds her in good stead as her life develops. Yet she is no match as a single, lonely girl for the bigoted views held by those around her. A storm of prejudice and a need to see justice done, at any cost, whips through the community, targeting her as the only viable suspect in the murder case.Loneliness is a theme throughout the novel that makes this a particularly heartfelt and poignant story.What makes this a fabulous read are the rich descriptions, the language and the languorous pace that, just like the waterways, move the story along at just the right tempo. The setting comes to life beautifully. The writing and storytelling has been compared to the work of Barbara Kingsolver and I can really see why!The title comes from common parlance in the area and means …far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters…I was sad when this book came to an end and it is still vibrantly with me, a couple of weeks down the line. It indeed has all the hallmarks of a future classic!HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 March 2019
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