Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens

1969

Swamp water is still and dark, having swallowed the light in its muddy throat.

diurnal

Active in the daytime.

Life decays and reeks and returns to the rotted duff; a poignant wallow of death begetting life.

A flour pudding boiled or steamed in a cloth bag.

1952

Kya, only six at the time,

they were joined by runaway slaves, who escaped into the marsh and were called maroons, and freed slaves,

A man who didn’t mind scrabbling for supper would never starve.

1952,

Just like their whiskey, the marsh dwellers bootlegged their own laws—not

Pa not there. He had two settings: silence and shouting.

Reminds me of men. Oh yeah, Pa was one of’em.

“Ya wanta play explorers?” he asked. “Ya said ya’re too old to play ’splorers.” “Nah, I just said that. Never too old. Race ya!”

After Ma left, over the next few weeks, Kya’s oldest brother and two sisters drifted away too, as if by example.

There were 5 children originally

On the morning when Jodie was the only sibling left, Kya awakened to the clatter-clank and hot grease of breakfast.

Light lingered after the sun, as it does, some of it pooling in the room, so that for a brief moment the lumpy beds and piles of old clothes took on more shape and color than the trees

alone at night for the first time in her life.

The darkness held an odor of sweetness, the earthy breath of frogs and salamanders who’d made it through one more stinky-hot day. The marsh snuggled in closer with a low fog, and she slept.

Kya sank onto the brick ’n’ boards, watching Ma’s watercolors of the marsh smolder into ash.

Pa burnt Ma’s watercolor paintings.

“This here’ll get ya food fer the week. Thar ain’t no such thang as handouts,” he said. “Ever’thang cost sump’m, and fer the money ya gotta keep the house up, stove wood c’lected, and warsh the laundree.”

Together the marsh and sea separated the village from the rest of the world,

No ladies or children stepped inside because it wasn’t considered proper, but a take-out window had been cut out of the wall

Mention of this restaurant at end of book some 40+ years later.

Nehi cola

Think Radar in MASH

Coloreds couldn’t use the door or...

So the only intersection in town was Main, Broad, and the Atlantic Ocean.

That’s what you call a small town.

sea oats

A kind of grass

Mostly, the village seemed tired of arguing with the elements, and simply sagged.

Barkley Cove was quite literally a backwater town, bits scattered here and there among the estuaries and reeds like an egret’s nest flung by the wind.

“Never mind her. You cain’t go blamin’ yo’ sins on somebody else, not even swamp trash.

Ma had told her, “Never run in town or people’ll think you stole something.” But as soon as Kya reached the sandy track, she ran a good half mile. Then speed-walked the rest.

She tidied up after herself and after him, like a serious little woman.

Hands to her mouth, she held her head back and called, “Kee-ow, kee-ow, kee-ow.” Specks of silver appeared in the sky from up and down the beach, from over the surf. “Here they come. I can’t count as high as that many gulls are,” she said. Crying and screeching, the birds swirled and dived, hovered near her face, and landed as she tossed grits to them. Finally, they quieted and stood about preening, and she sat on the sand, her legs folded to the side. One large gull settled onto the sand

It’s so natural, yet to really imagine it, it would feel like a scene from Hitchcock’s Birds!

“It’s my birthday,” she told the bird.

):

1969

morning of October 30, 1969.

I was in my freshman year at Syracuse University on that day, having just turned 18 on October 13.

There lay a man, flat on his back, his left leg turned grotesquely forward from the knee. His eyes and mouth wide open. “Jesus Christ!” Benji said. “My God, it’s Chase Andrews.” “We better git the sheriff.” “But we ain’t s’posed to be out here.” “That don’t matter now. And them crows’ll be snooping ’round anytime now.”

And so begins the mystery part of the book.

syrupy sand

Sheriff Ed Jackson

Ever since Barkley Cove had been settled in 1751, no lawman extended his jurisdiction beyond the saw grass.

But Jackson mostly ignored crimes committed in the swamp. Why interrupt rats killing rats?

with Dr. Vern Murphy, lean and fit with graying hair, the town’s only physician,

“It’s Chase, all right. Sam and Patti Love won’t survive this.”

Where’re his footprints? How did Chase Andrews walk down the path, cross this muck to the stairs so he could climb to the top, and not leave any footprints himself?”

1952

“Miss Catherine Danielle

She recognized Chase Andrews and his friends,

Kya never went back to school a day in her life.

Months passed, winter easing gently into place, as southern winters do.

at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand.

Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.

This is critical to the story.

Deputy Joe Purdue,

There was a Sheriff and a Deputy, but only one doctor.