Where the Crawdads Sing

I have now read this best selller by Delia Owens twice, most recently for my book group, and am astounded at my failure to have posted about it. This is Owens first novel (written at age 70) although she has co-authored--with her former husband-- several non-fiction accounts of her work as a wildlife scientist in Africa. The biography on her website describes her childhood as follows: "Her mother, also an outside-girl, encouraged Delia to explore far into the oak forests, saying 'Go way out yonder where the crawdads sing.' Her mother taught her how to hike without stepping on rattle snakes, and most important not to be afraid of critters of any kind. Delia went on to spend most of her life in or near true wilderness, and since childhood has thought of Nature as a true companion. One of her best friends." Hence we have the basis for the main character Kya and for the title of the book. 

When she is five years old, Kya watches her mother walk away from their rough shack in the North Carolina marshes and Kya doesn't stop looking for her until well into adulthood. Within the next few months, the older siblings all drift away, leaving the now 6-year old to fend for herself with periodic appearances by a drunken and abusive father. Over the next few years, Kya throws herself into learning to survive and even tames her father for a few months by cleaning and cooking to the best of her ability. In that short time span, he teaches her how to fish but then eventually leaves her as well. At one point, the truant officer comes out to take her to school but one day of bullying is all Kya can handle, and afterwards she successfully eludes any attempts to find her in the marshes. She becomes known in town as the "Marsh Girl" and local boys make a sport of coming to her shack to taunt her. And then one day, Tate, a former friend of her youngest brother, comes into her life and he befriends her and eventually teaches her how to read and count. Her curiosity about the natural world around her is limitless and she gradually develops the artistic skills inherited from her mother to start drawing and even painting the creatures and environment she so closely observes. Her only friends are the Black man who runs a small gas dock, Jumpin, and his wife Mabel. Of course, the inhabitants of Colored Town are also outcasts and so are more sympathetic and supportive of Kya, collecting clothes for her and buying the mussels she collects,  thus giving her some small amount of money to buy staples.

When Tate leaves for college, Kya once again experiences her desolate loneliness and is vulnerable to the charms of the town's former high school football star, Chase. He courts Kya until she gives in to his sexual advances, which he brags about in town and then goes off to marry someone else. Chase is eventually found dead out near an abandoned fire tower and Kya is blamed and put on trial. This is a coming of age narrative, a love story, a mystery, and a paean to nature--all rolled up in lyrical language that reflects Owens' passion for nature and her appreciation of humans' (and animals') basest and best instincts. Although set in the 50's and 60's the issues of prejudice, poverty, and longing for belonging still resonate today. The book holds several surprises at the end, but every reader will agree with the NYT's assessment that whatever rewards come to Kya, she has earned the hard way. Read about the book's remarkable trajectory to sell more print copies than any other adult title in 2019.