Like many, I picked up “Where the Crawdads Sing” due to its immense popularity and book club appeal. However, unlike the majority, I found myself utterly unimpressed, bordering on frustrated. Often, when a book receives such widespread acclaim, I question my own judgment. But in this case, I am firmly convinced the issue lies squarely with the book itself.
What follows is a rant, presented in the order of my growing exasperation. No apologies offered.
My skepticism began with the title itself. While crayfish are indeed ubiquitous, they are hardly known for their singing prowess. *
My certainty that this book was not for me solidified on the very first page. I have a strong aversion to overwrought prose, the kind that screams of an author desperately trying to pen the next Great American Novel, meticulously peppering each page with adjectives and metaphors to justify the impending accolades. Sentences like, “Swamp water is still and dark, having swallowed the light in its muddy throat. Even night crawlers are diurnal in this lair. There are sounds, of course, but compared to the marsh, the swamp is quiet because decomposition is cellular work. Life decays and reeks and returns to the rotted duff; a poignant wallow of death begetting life,” exemplify this perfectly. There’s a distinction between beautiful imagery and the pretentious jumble of SAT vocabulary and figurative language designed to feign depth where none exists. For me, this book falls squarely into the latter category. Much of the narrative is saturated with this excessively flowery language, strewn across every page seemingly without purpose, adding little to the meaning or coherence. But it sounds fancy, right? Therefore, art!
Then came the jarring realization that the story is set in North Carolina. The dialect. AGHHHHH!!!! This is a prime example of why authors should exercise extreme caution when attempting dialect. It requires an intimate, almost innate understanding of a place. “Southern hick” is not a monolithic entity. North Carolina alone boasts at least five distinct dialects. Having attended Appalachian State University in Boone, I witnessed firsthand professors who could pinpoint a North Carolinian’s region of origin within a few sentences. Some could even narrow it down to a couple of counties. Kya’s father, hailing from the mountains, would possess a dialect markedly different from the coastal community of the Outer Banks. These dialects are distinct and bear no resemblance to each other. The cadence and brogue of the Pamlico Sound region are unique, and attempting to capture it on paper is a perilous endeavor. Owens unequivocally failed.
Is this nitpicking? Perhaps. But my concern extends beyond mere accuracy to the book’s problematic use of dialect. Every “good” character in the narrative supposedly transcends their dialect to adopt “proper” English. Are we to believe that Kya, devoid of television or radio influence, sheds her dialect effortlessly, through sheer intelligence or inherent goodness? The same applies to Tate. Conversely, Chase retains his dialect, conveniently signaling his villainous nature. This reeks of classist undertones, which I find utterly distasteful. It reads like a caricature of “southern hick” speech, the kind employed by those who hold a mocking sense of superiority, having never actually encountered authentic Southern dialect. **
Further deepening my bewilderment was a passage on page 57, where Kya’s father reminisces about his family: “They had land, rich land, raised tobacco and cotton and such. Over near Asheville. Yo’ gramma on my side wore bonnets big as wagon wheels and long skirts. We lived in a house wif a verandder that went a’the way around two stories high. It was fine, mighty fine.” I immediately screenshot this and sent it to my husband, a lifelong resident of the Asheville area. His response: “What in the world?” Indeed. A. No one from western NC speaks like this. And considering Kya’s father didn’t relocate to the OBX until adulthood, his native dialect would have persisted. Linguistic principles dictate that accent alteration in adulthood is a laborious process, often yielding imperfect results. Moreover, this dialect is not representative of Pamlico speech either. (Refer back to my dialect rant). B. Does Owens realize Asheville is nestled in the mountains??? While tobacco cultivation existed in the mountains, it was less prevalent and successful than in the Piedmont region. Cotton cultivation is even more challenging due to colder temperatures, excessive rainfall, and limited arable land. While Asheville had a cotton mill, large-scale cotton farming was not viable. Furthermore, the notion of amassing wealth through agriculture and erecting plantation-style houses with enslaved people in western NC is historically inaccurate. Western NC’s mountainous terrain fundamentally differed from the Deep South. Anyone who has driven from the Piedmont to Asheville understands the dramatic shift from flatlands to mountains. Plantation-scale agriculture was simply not feasible.
Adding to the geographical absurdity is the scene where Tate’s mother supposedly drives to ASHEVILLE to purchase a bicycle, unable to find one locally. WHAT??? She bypassed Wilmington? She drove past Greenville, Raleigh (the state capital), Durham, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and even missed exits to CHARLOTTE (the state’s largest city), all to ascend a mountain for a bike? No other city in NC stocked bicycles? The drive from the Pamlico Sound to Asheville is a six-hour trek in 2019, under optimal traffic conditions. Imagine the duration in the 1950s!
Good grief, what is this author’s fixation with Asheville? And does she perceive it as a coastal town, rather than situated at the opposite end of a rather elongated state?
This cemented my conviction that, despite any scientific or naturalistic flourishes, Delia Owens neglected to conduct even rudimentary research on North Carolina. Or perhaps she did and consciously disregarded it. Perhaps she believed that name-dropping the Outer Banks and Asheville, as NC’s prominent tourist destinations, would lend an air of authenticity? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Vast portions of the novel devolve into a tedious nature documentary, punctuated by endless descriptions of flora, fauna, and, of course, grits. Because SOUTHERN charm, y’all! Just in case the point wasn’t sufficiently hammered home.
The book also features some excruciatingly awkward sexual encounters.
Then there are the protracted courtroom sequences, which are utterly mind-numbing.
From these scenes, it’s evident Owens is equally clueless about travel times between Greenville and the OBX. (And I’m dubious about the existence of a Piedmont Hotel in Greenville, which is geographically in the coastal plain, not the Piedmont. However, a Piedmont Hotel does exist in Waynesville, also not in the Piedmont, but nestled in the mountains near… you guessed it… Asheville.) Someone needs to gift this woman a map, or perhaps introduce her to Google.
The portrayal of the town’s relationship with Kya also felt off-key. It’s as if Owens is aware of the Outer Banks community’s insular nature, yet lacks a genuine understanding of its nuances and complexities.
Kya’s character development is consistently frustrating. And some of her accomplishments demand an almost comical level of suspension of disbelief. Owens clearly aims to portray her in a specific light – a manic pixie dream girl of the marsh, until, abruptly, she isn’t.
Finally, in my catalog of grievances, Owens seems uncertain about the book’s intended genre. Is it a nature-centric ode? A crime thriller? Literary fiction? It feels as though she aspired to write a crime novel but deemed genre fiction too pedestrian, hence the overwrought prose and introspective musings. Because ART. The nature elements, I suspect, are her comfort zone, a fallback to familiar territory.
*Upon further research, I discovered that crayfish do produce a sound, though rarely audible to us as it can occur both underwater and above. It resembles tap dancing. Hardly singing. “Where the Crawdads Tap Dance” lacks the same poetic resonance, I concede. And it certainly doesn’t pinpoint a geographical location. I did ponder why the title wasn’t “Where the Cicadas Sing.” Cicadas undeniably sing. And their 17-year cycle would have aligned PERFECTLY with the book’s timeline. Admittedly, I’m perplexed. While NC is prone to cicada swarms, I’m uncertain if they are prevalent in the Pamlico region. Still, it would have been a more fitting title than the current one. (Again, it sounds flowery and profound. Doesn’t equate to actual depth or meaning.)
**My husband, at the age of 13, resolved to eliminate his Southern accent. He dedicated years of diligent effort, emulating network TV anchors’ speech patterns. It remains a subtle presence, though he can convincingly pass as non-Southern in other regions. However, when he returns home, his accent resurfaces in full force, replete with dialectal quirks. Having resided in the Southern Appalachian mountains for the majority of my life, I am still identified as an outsider the moment I speak, despite my Midwestern relatives’ insistence that I’ve acquired an accent. Even here in eastern Tennessee, locals detect a slight incongruity in my husband’s speech, recognizing it as Southern, but not quite their own. (He has relaxed his accent modification since settling here, as it fosters a sense of belonging within the community. This is as crucial in Southern Appalachia as it is in the OBX for community acceptance.) A mere mountain gorge distinguishes the dialect between eastern TN Appalachian and western NC Appalachian, subtle enough for natives to discern his accent as slightly foreign. BY THE WAY, my husband’s intelligence remained constant, accent or no accent. He recognized the necessity of accent modification for his journalistic aspirations, and thus pursued it. He was, on multiple occasions in Michigan, asked to “speak Southern” for the amusement of others. Which is deeply offensive. Southern dialects are rooted in cultural and geographical factors, bearing no correlation to intelligence or moral character.
