Where the Crawdads Sing

 

When Chase Andrews, well-known in the coastal North Carolina town of Barkley Cove, is found dead in 1969, suspicion falls on Kya Clark, an infamous loner dubbed the “marsh girl.” Abandoned by most of her family and forced to care for her abusive father until his presumed death, Kya grows up with no formal education or social graces but plenty of self-reliance and awareness of her habitat. Tate Walker, a friend of her brothers, teaches her how to read and write, but their budding relationship ends when he departs for college. This leaves her open to the advances of Chase, a popular athlete, and puts them on a collision course that will alter their lives forever.

 

Delia Owens’ wildly popular 2018 novel blends murder mystery, natural history, and coming-of-age tale, a combination enticing to a broad spectrum of readers. That said, Where the Crawdads Sing is at its best as an exploration of time and, especially, place. North Carolina settings are often confined to Appalachia, but here, Owens, a Georgia-bred zoologist, gives us an immersive look at the state’s coastal marshes and the diverse life therein.

 

Unfortunately, the rest of the novel is marred by contrivance and wretched characterization. The “simp” label may be flung heedlessly by misogynists, and yet here, it fits Tate to a tee. He’s a Dream Boy of the Kindly Nerdy rather than Manic Pixie variety, but his existence seemingly revolves around supporting/appeasing Kya just the same. Chase, for his part, is so transparently and predictably dishonest and sleazy that he effectively robs the book of much of its suspense. Of course, he still gets more development than Jumpin, at times Kya’s only enduring friend and an exercise in racially crude tokenism.

 

All of these examples suggest that Owens can’t write male characters, but it’s more apt to suggest that she can’t write believable characters, period. Kya herself is wildly improbable. Could an unschooled loner be a lot sharper than judgmental town folk give her credit for? Absolutely. Could the same unschooled loner make the leap to highly accomplished writer/artist/naturalist in her early 20s? Give me a break.

 

Then again, this is not the type of book to let plausibility get in the way of hammering home trite themes. At one point, Kya’s lawyer harangues a jury about judging those who are different in a way that echoes store brand Atticus Finch, but his sermonizing is at least given context. The same cannot be said for heavy-handed dialogue.

 

Where the Crawdads Sing is a deeply flawed book that turns what should be a sympathetic character into a cartoon and squanders its beautifully rendered setting in order to tell us, often very unartfully, what we’ve already heard before.