A book that sings in a way the crawdads could only dream about

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“A lot of us end up in a swamp during times of our lives,” Owens reflected. “But we also have to know how we can move to the light...you don’t have to live in a marsh to be lonely...You don’t have to live in a swamp to feel isolated.” I would add, for some of us such places are the least lonely spots we could imagine, teeming with life and wonder. 

I think I’m the last person on the planet to venture within the covers of Where the Crawdads Sing. This debut novel of zoologist, Georgia native, and northern Idaho resident Delia Owens, written after she turned  60, remains transfixed on the New York Times bestseller list in its 84th week. Because I am stingy with my purchased book selections, just because 685,979 people rated it an average 4.49 out of 5, doesn’t mean I might like it. Never mind that 94% of 46,096 reviewers awarded it 4 stars or higher, because 2% found it trite unrealistic unreadable boring overwrought overrated dull irritating tripe that insulted North Carolina. 

 It was this line in one of the negative reviews that compelled me to buy the book, “If Crawdads bespeaks of the contemporary state of literature - God help us.” I had to see how far the global literati had fallen. 

 By the time I finished chapter four, I found myself at the bottom of the well populated heap, willingly “duped” by the author’s gifts of observation and description, which sang to me in a way the crawdads could only dream about. I’ve read many criticisms of novels that some readers feel are ill researched, and certainly a child of coastal North Carolina swamps wouldn’t shop in Asheville for groceries. But what child that sits before the warmth of a roaring campfire, under a black canopy of twinkling stars in the presence of a spellbinding storyteller stops the yarn spinner mid sentence  with a “What the heck?!!!” There is such a thing as a willing suspension of disbelief, and once the tide of a tale sweeps you out, the suspension is involuntary.  https://www.montanaseniornews.com/where-the-crawdad-sings/

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