“Relationships are all there is.  Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else.  Nothing exists in isolation.  We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.”

Margaret Wheatley

Palmettos sprawled across sandflats; green lagoons linked together, filled with blade-grass and rimmed with oak giants; salt-air and gull-song drift in from the sea. 

Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens) takes us to the marshy wetlands of the North Carolina coast, home to Kya who at a tender age has been abandoned by her family.  Left with a lean-to shack for shelter, she does not feel alone.  She is at home, surrounded by layers of life, teeming with energy and provision.  It is an incredible life-giving ecosystem deemed wasteland by many yet holding sought after secrets for any serious environmentalist. This is Kya’s world.

This unfolding story of self-discovery highlights the painful realization that we deeply need others to become our truest selves.  As any hope of family fades, little Kya is content in her safe world with critters and birds as her soulmates.  Her initial forays into the local town seeking added provisions only shows her how unsafe the outer world is, a place where she is dismissed simply as “The Marsh Girl.” A tenuous connection is eventually built with one kind-hearted man, a friendship that leads to a deepening vulnerability with a few select others.  These relationships, so risky and soul-searing, challenge Kya to see that a human relationship has the potential to plummet the depths of a human heart in a way not touched by the living in her beloved wetlands.

Author Owens brings her training as a zoologist and her years studying African wildlife into the writing of this novel, and it’s obvious.  Her description of the wetlands and the layers of life is rich and meticulous.  The reader can easily feel like part of a study on the coastal life.   Equally reflective is Owen’s look into the heart of young girl, at once at home and yet, filled with longing for another taste of genuine human-connectivity.  The interplay between the organically ripe world and the abrasive shallowness of much of the human world is vividly painted and painfully portrayed.  In many ways, this story is a scientific examination of geography and the human soul.

Whether looking for a nature adventure or a reflection on the significance of relationship, Where the Crawdads Sing is worth a read.  Enjoy!

Mary, April 2020

Photo by Eric Muhr on Unsplash

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