I read this 2018 debut novel for a book club. It tells the story of Kya. She is the youngest child of a poor family growing up on the marshland outside a small southern US town (Barkley Cove) in the 1950s. After her mother walks away from Kya's abusive father, all the older siblings leave too. Six-year-old Kya is left with Pa, and soon he also leaves. Kya hides from the local truant officer and manages to support herself by finding muscles and selling them to Jumpin, who lives with his wife Mabel in Colored Town. The local townsfolk shun Kya and begin to refer to her as The Marsh Girl. The chapters flick between Kya growing up, and a police investigation in 1969 involving the murder of a local sporting hero Chase Andrews.
Young Kya attracts the attention of Tate, an old friend of her brother Jodie. Kya and Tate share a love of nature, the birds of the marshland, and poetry. Tate teaches Kya to read. He breaks Kya's heart when he goes off to university; he promises to return and continue their relationship, but drops her. Kya seeks comforts in the arms of local jock Chase Andrews, who doesn't know anything about wildlife, but helps her endure her isolation and loneliness.
Things turn sour with Chase when it becomes obvious he's never going to introduce Kya to his parents and Kya reads about his engagement to another girl in the local newspaper. Tate returns from university repentant, but Kya has been hurt too many times. Kya has been collecting and painting shells and feathers since she was a child. Tate encourages her to turn her collection into a book. Kya does this and is finally able to fix up the family shack she is still living in.
On a night when Kya is meeting her publisher in Greenville (about 90 mins away by bus), Chase is pushed off a tower to his death. A shell necklace, given to him by Kya, that he always wore, is missing. Kya is suspected of pushing Chase off the tower.
Kya is arrested and put on trial. The prosecution argues that Kya could have returned from Greenville at night, pushed Chase, and then returned in the morning. Kya's lawyer puts up a strong defence. She is acquitted and lives happily ever after with Tate. In the final pages, Kya dies of a heart attack at 63. Tate finds a box that reveals that Kya has been publishing poetry under the pseudonym of a famous local poet, and that she has the shell necklace belonging to Chase.
The book is full of amazing descriptive language and imagery. It unwinds slowly, much as life on the marsh must have done for Kya. The murder investigation chapters are more pacy. The courtroom scenes are reasonably uneventful. Kya's ongoing loneliness and need to connect with nature is shown through her relationship with the courtroom cat and her constantly looking out of the window.
Overall, the book was a bit slow for me. It included the descriptive language of authors like Sonya Hartnett and Jane Harper, but there just weren't enough plot twists or second storylines to justify 370 pages. The themes of the book include middle-class prejudice against poor people and dark-skinned people, sexual relationships in nature compared to humans, the impact of domestic violence on families and the impact of isolation and loneliness.
I'd assumed the crawdads in the title were birds, but they're actually a type of shrimp.
Book club questions:
How would you feel if you were Tate finding the box?
Have you ever met a Kya? Who was rejected when you were at school?
What would Kya have named you if she'd been at your school? (e.g. AlwaysWearsPearls)
Who would play Kya, Chase and Tate in the movie version?
What other books or movies does the story remind you of?
What does finding Kya was the poet add to the story?
Was Chase too much of a stereotype?
Did becoming beautiful make Kya's life easier or harder?
