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Swamplandia!
by Karen Russell (Goodreads Author)
by Karen Russell (Goodreads Author)
I have read two of Russell's short stories in the Best American Short Story anthologies, but I have not read her published collection. Still, the stories that I read lead me to buy Swamplandia! within days of it's release. This book continues in a similar, although more realistic, vain as the title story of her collection -- St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.
The premise of Swamplandia! -- a family of alligator wrestlers, running a struggling amusement park on a desolate island off the gulf coast of Florida -- strains the imagination, but the reader can still accept the situation and the characters as plausible residents of the so-called, "real-world." This is likely because the members of the Bigtree family are each carefully drawn characters who we get to know intimately. This is even true for the matriarch of the family, who has died before the action of the book takes place. It is especially true for the "heroine" of the book, Ava, who narrates a portion of the story.
Indeed, Russell seems most comfortable with her characters and less so with the actions that they undertake. The main action of one of the duel plots is a journey through the swamp that Ava undertakes with a mysterious man called the "Bird Man." Their journey is exciting and contains beautiful descriptions of the swamp, but it is, after all, simply a water-logged journey. That their mission, their destination, was unique, wasn't enough for me. It felt done before.
Also, one published review that I read mentions that the end game felt overly rushed. I agree. The journey plodded along in at a pleasant, but somewhat slow place, until it seems Russell felt that it needed to end (it did) and did what she needed to do to end it.
The New Yorker chose Ms. Russell as one of their "20 under 40." I have not read enough recently to say, with authority, that their decision was "spot on," but I can say that despite some reservations with the book as a whole, the characters in Swamplandia! were interesting enough that I am looking forward to seeing who Ms. Russell introduces us to next.
The premise of Swamplandia! -- a family of alligator wrestlers, running a struggling amusement park on a desolate island off the gulf coast of Florida -- strains the imagination, but the reader can still accept the situation and the characters as plausible residents of the so-called, "real-world." This is likely because the members of the Bigtree family are each carefully drawn characters who we get to know intimately. This is even true for the matriarch of the family, who has died before the action of the book takes place. It is especially true for the "heroine" of the book, Ava, who narrates a portion of the story.
Indeed, Russell seems most comfortable with her characters and less so with the actions that they undertake. The main action of one of the duel plots is a journey through the swamp that Ava undertakes with a mysterious man called the "Bird Man." Their journey is exciting and contains beautiful descriptions of the swamp, but it is, after all, simply a water-logged journey. That their mission, their destination, was unique, wasn't enough for me. It felt done before.
Also, one published review that I read mentions that the end game felt overly rushed. I agree. The journey plodded along in at a pleasant, but somewhat slow place, until it seems Russell felt that it needed to end (it did) and did what she needed to do to end it.
The New Yorker chose Ms. Russell as one of their "20 under 40." I have not read enough recently to say, with authority, that their decision was "spot on," but I can say that despite some reservations with the book as a whole, the characters in Swamplandia! were interesting enough that I am looking forward to seeing who Ms. Russell introduces us to next.
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