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“Swamplandia” from the Notables List

I finished “Swamplandia” by Karen Russell a couple of weeks ago. It makes me a little nervous to blog about a book that isn’t entirely fresh in my mind.

Readers may recall that “Swamplandia!” was part of the drama of the Pultizer Prize for fiction this year. It was one of the three finalists for the prize, but the committee decided that none of the finalists was worthy of the prize itself.

I picked it up because it’s on this year’s American Library Association Notable Books List, and I continue to read my way through that list, having taken a brief detour through the One Book One Lincoln finalists.

In short, it’s a contemporary story set on an island just off of Florida, about a girl whose left to fend for herself when her family and the family business fall apart. It’s a fairly quirky story, with some hilarious parts, and some remarkably sad and troubling parts. I felt some queasy dissonance when quirky met evil in this book.

“Swamplandia!” is told by Ava Bigtree, a thirteen-year-old whose mother was a feature performer at the Bigtree business called Swamplandia!–in the nightly finale, she would dive into a pool full of alligators. But her mother dies, Swamplandia loses its audience to an inland theme park, her brother and father go inland on their own pursuits, and Ava takes a dangerous partner in her quest to find her sister.

When this book works, it’s because the characters are so distinctive, and yet they yearn for the usual things–love, security, and identity.

I sense that this is one of those books that most readers either love or hate. I land somewhere in between. I enjoyed reading this, but finished it primarily to check it off of my list. It was toward the end when Ava is looking for her sister that I finally felt a stronger pull.

I’m reflecting on my typical response to novels that are usually described as “quirky.” Many novels in this category read like a series of humorous images and characters without the glue of dramatic tension or intriguing relationships. I think that this accounts for my initial lack of connection to “Swamplandia!”  Even so, I’ll recommend this to readers of literary fiction who enjoy stories of unusual families or situations.

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