Paul Weiss's Reviews > Where the Crawdads Sing

On literacy: “I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full”.

If Kya had grown up in the mountains of Appalachia, townies might have looked down their noses and scoffed at her as a “redneck”, “hillbilly”, or perhaps “white trash” and “trailer trash”. But since she lived deep in the Atlantic coastal tidal marshes of North Carolina, the vogue term of disparagement was “marsh girl” or “marsh trash”. Demonstrating sensitivity and an innate intelligence that was clearly off the charts to an empty audience, Kya raised herself living alone and completely isolated for years in a shack with only her ever-growing collection of biological artifacts to love:

“Her collections matured, categorized methodically by order, genus, and species; by age according to bone wear; by size in millimeters of feathers; or by the most fragile hues of greens. The science and art entwined in each other’s strengths; the colors, the light, the species, the life; weaving a masterpiece of knowledge and beauty that filled every corner of her shack. Her world. She grew with them – the trunk of the vine – alone, but holding all the wonders together. But just as her collection grew, so did her loneliness … months passed into a year. Then another.”

… until she encountered Tate Walker, a young man, whose yearning for her companionship, her mind, and her beauty, blossomed into a love that would not and could not be requited in the wilderness of Kya’s beloved marsh. Kya’s world slowly began to open to new possibilities as he patiently taught her to read and write. Despite his promises to return to her and stay in touch, Tate’s departure to attend university left open the possibility for Kya’s marginal encounters with civilization to take her down a different and tortuous Byzantine path. Having encountered Chase Andrews, a second young man who offered the possibility of entry into a larger world of possible friends, family and love, Kya’s world collapses when Andrew’s broken body is found at the foot of a decrepit fire tower in the marsh and she is charged with his murder.

No doubt there are those that would dismiss WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING as romantic chick-lit and, to be sure, it definitely has some of that flavour that might incline readers to momentarily assign such a label. But to do so would unfairly weaken an extraordinary novel that is so much more – a murder mystery, a legal thriller, a coming-of-age narrative, a celebration of nature, science and outdoors writing, and an awesome, gut-wrenching, cautionary tale on the human frailties of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, rejection, exclusion, snobbery, and our propensity to make unwarranted judgments and draw conclusions on the basis of appearances and incomplete knowledge and information.

The author herself characterized her novel in the following way:

“WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING is a mystery, a love story, and a courtroom drama, but it is primarily about self-reliance, survival, and how isolation affects human behavior. Since our specises is a social mammal, we have strong genetic tendencies to belong to a group of tightly bonded family and friends. But what happens if a young girl … finds herself alone without a group? Of course, she feels lonely, threatened, insecure, and incompetent. [She] also behaves strangely, hiding behind trees when she sees others on the beach and avoiding the village. She ventures deeper into the wilds of the marsh, away from people, and in so doing begins to learn life’s lessons directly from the natural world.”

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING is a heart-warming, compelling, gut-wrenching, awesome novel that will definitely be on my TOP TEN list for 2022. Beyond that, a jaw-dropping ending inclines me to add it to that much more atmospheric list of my personal lifetime favourites. Regardless of what genre might press your buttons, I can definitely recommend WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING as an awesome read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Paul Weiss