Book: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I can see why this had sold 10m copies at the time when my copy was printed. All those book clubs across the world analyse it on so many levels; mental health, poverty, racism, prejudice of every kind and then second-guess the ending. 

The story is of a young girl, Kya,  left to her own devices living in her estranged family’s shack in the marshes of N Carolina, USA. All she knows is being by herself. This being the late 1950s, there is no TV. In fact, Kya has no electricity, radio or any form of entertainment, or cultural reference. No education. All she has are the birds and other animals around her. 

We watch as she tries to make friends with people she sees while out fishing for her meals. She doesn’t have the social skills to reach out for help and misses her mum mostly but also her abusive dad, who becomes less abusive after her mum and siblings depart. (Oddly enough, this is a theme in the next book I’m reading, this time a memoir).

There are so many good bits, particularly how she befriends the animals, the river and all the nature around her. A favourite bit is when she decides she is better educated than the truancy official who tried to get her into a school that one time when she was young. Interestingly, schooling on being an adult is all she needed - but that comes later in the book.

The backs that turn from her when she has to go into the small town to source provisions, especially from church people is unsurprising and heartbreaking. Kya only finds friends in the people from the coloured town, who bare no such prejudice and understand hers.

Also I now have a word for people we used to call ‘handymen’. In recent years I’ve struggled to find a unisex alternative. Kya calls them fixers. That’s good enough for me.

This book came to me via a box of delights sent to me by the director after I’d finished a 9-month work contract with them. I’d had to thank you book presents from them before, sometimes from my wish list, others like this came recommended.

I had seen it before but never picked it up. Now that I have these few weeks of mostly free time ahead of me after finishing my next job early, I’m maxing on reading. I’d always promised myself if I ever had the luxury of free time when I could afford to take time off, I would read A LOT. And so a book-a-week habit has been formed and I am so pleased to have discovered this one. Where the Crawdads Sing is wonderfully written with masses of empathy, understanding and love.