Where the Crawdads Sing – Review

Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens

This novel was told with a dual narrative - two stories running simultaneously - which I thought worked really well, and which was definitely my favourite thing about the book. One narrative (the main one, really) was from Kya's perspective. It began in her childhood in 1952, and followed her growth into adolescence and then adulthood. We got an insight into her family relationships (upsettingly dysfunctional), witnessed her falling in love for the first time (this was well-written), understood the difficulties of the town people's treatment of her as an outsider, and got to know her as a person. Kya is intelligent, emotional, completely in touch with nature, and we grow to love her as we follow her life on the lonely marshes.

And at the same time as all this, there is a second narrative: the storyline following the suspicious death of Chase Andrews. This takes place in 1969, and we see the policemen Ed and Joe slowly piecing together evidence and theorising about the events of the fateful night - with a general bias against Kya. They have pretty much decided her guilt already, and are looking to gather enough evidence to justify bringing her in for questioning.

The second narrative had a much slower pace - because it was largely conversation and contemplation from the two police officers - whereas Kya's coming-of-age storyline had more of the breathlessness of a free, heady and romance-imbued youth. This was quite a nice contrast, but here's what was really clever about it. Both narratives were going forwards in time, but what we ended up with was a sense of one storyline inexorably catching up on the other one. As Kya gets older, we watch the date creeping ever closer to October 1969, to a time when we know she is about to be accused of murder. The dual narratives inevitably converge. This is a really effective way of using structure and timing and perspective to build tension - especially because by the time we reach October 1969 in Kya's narrative, we love Kya and are convinced she is innocent.

Now I have to warn you that if you don't want spoilers, you should stop reading here. Because there was a twist at the end of the book, hailed by reviewers as 'surprising', 'neat' and 'a killer twist.' And I really did not like it.

After the murder trial, the people of the town come to the verdict that Kya is not guilty, in a moving moment of finally looking past their prejudices and accepting the Marsh Girl as a real person. Kya is set free again, returning at last to the expansive marshes (a nice juxtaposition of setting with the cramped prison cell!) and as a free woman she is able to reconnect with her childhood lover (hooray). All is well, until the final pages, when Owens gives us the twist: Kya did murder Chase Andrews.

First things first, I'm not convinced this twist wasn't a little too 'surprising' to be believable. Is murdering Chase Andrews something Kya would actually do? I think she probably would have been capable of it - she was portrayed throughout the book as being very bright, and certainly enigmatic and secretive enough to commit such an act without anyone noticing. But Owens didn't show me enough of Kya's passionate hatred of Chase. I knew Kya resented him, was a bit scared of him even, but to plan such an intricate murder and follow it through? Not enough hints of her true guilt were dropped, for me.

Secondly, I wonder why Owens chose to include this twist. I can't help thinking it slightly undermined what I thought was the whole point of the book. After a whole novel of showing us that the distant Marsh Girl is actually not a wild savage at all but a sensitive and relatable human being, it is revealed that she actually is a savage after all. What point was Owens trying to make? That the locals were wrong to overcome their prejudices? That they should have doubted Kya's integrity and left her far away on the fringes of their community as Ed and Joe were trying to? That you can't trust Marsh people?

It crossed my mind that maybe she was trying to add some girl-power to Kya's narrative, giving her a sort of secret victory over the townspeople and over Chase (who did abuse her after all), but even this doesn't add up for me. A vindictive murder was not the best way of resolving Chase's actions, in my humble opinion. Would it not have been more powerful for Kya to truthfully come forward and report what Chase did, see some proper justice, and then maybe people would have realised that Chase was the savage, not Kya, and maybe she could even have forgiven him?

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I mostly really liked this book. It was well-written, and the use of the double narrative was extremely effective. But sadly the ending spoilt it for me.