Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

This is good start to a literary career.  The connection between poverty and an intimacy with nature has long been part of class divisions in rural communities, a source of idyllic benefit for the economically depressed places, and the American South is no exception.  I myself fall into this stereotype all too often.

This book is both a murder mystery and a coming-of-age story set in coastal North Carolina in the 1950s-’60s. The narrative draws on the author’s naturalist background to  vividly and critically depict a Southern society that’s still within living memory.  The plot revolves around a child named Kya, who is abandoned by her family to live by herself in the marshes and swamps along the North Carolina coast.. Nature and the environs of the marsh supply her with independence as well as an ad hoc family, and ultimately her intimate relationship with her home gives her both renown and an income. Unfortunately, the romanticizing of poverty and its possibilities is most likely well off the mark for similarly situated people.