After some Google searches and some vetoes, Swamplandia! (2011) by Karen Russell was our choice. It was critically acclaimed, I remembered seeing it on some lists, and the description and gator on the cover reminded us of the Everglades. My husband read it first, and then impatiently waited for me to get to it. I wasn't sure what this book was going to be like or if I was going to like it. It honestly sounded a little odd, but I was intrigued. After finishing it, I'm still not sure what to think. It was unique, memorable and well-written. But it was also meandering at times and much darker and sadder than I was expecting. Warning: Spoilers follow--because I don't know how to discuss this book without saying what happens.
Swamplandia! is a second-rate tourist attraction located on a remote island off the Florida coast. Tourists arrive via a 45-minute ferry ride to the entirely family-run experience. The family includes a grandfather, father, mother, and three children. Although they are a white family from Ohio, they sell themselves as Native Americans, with the father called Chief Big Tree. The story is told through the eyes of Ava Bigtree, the youngest daughter--thirteen years old. We see the demise of her family primarily through her eyes. She says early on in the book that, [t]he beginning of the end can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it."
Her grandfather is sent off to an old-folks home after he attacked a tourist because of his dementia. But more devastating is the death of Ava's mother to cancer. Not only is she the star of their show, but she is essential glue that keeps the entire family together and working. They slowly lose the tourists and their livelihood.
Kiwi, Ava's big brother and the oldest child is frustrated by his father's denial of their personal and financial situation. He knows they are drowning in debt and there is no way they can stay on the island. He takes off, and gets a job working at a rival tourist attraction billed as a version of hell and called The World of Darkness. Then her father leaves the island to do "business" on the mainland for a couple of months.
This leaves only Ava and her sixteen-year-old sister, Osceola, alone on the island. Since the death of her mother, Osceola has been obsessed with her homemade Ouija board and contacting the dead. She says she's been talking with Louis Thanksgiving, a young man killed in the 1930's when a dredge ship exploded. Eventually, Osceola leaves Ava, too, to marry her dead Louis Thanksgiving.
Ava is determined to save Osceola and her family, and she teams up with the "Bird Man"--a mysterious character who arrives on the island and, almost like a pied piper, gets paid to move troublesome birds away. Ava and the Birdman take off towards the "Underworld" to find her sister--hopefully alive.
At this point, the book is switching between Kiwi living on the mainland and working at The World of Darkness and Ava heading out to the middle of nowhere after her sister. I definitely found Kiwi's story easier to read. The culture shock was extensive, and Kiwi, who had been the brains of the entire family, finds himself completely lost and out of his depth. Ava's story, on the other hand, was so weird I didn't know what to think.
As Ava travels farther into the depths with the Birdman, I was still unsure what I was reading. After all, it is fiction. Is this a world where anything can happen, and Ava is heading into the Underworld, or is she a lost little kid, desperate, and being led into danger? There are plenty of parts of this book that don't feel real, so it wasn't much of a stretch to believe in an Underworld.
What stays with me most strongly about this book is the tragedy of this family. Russell does a very good job with subtle storytelling that really shows you how much the death of their mother threw this family into disarray. And everyone is struggling, but poor Ava is left alone as her family leaves her one by one. It's heartbreaking.
Nitpicks: As I was reading, I kept wondering how this bankrupt family was able to pay for food for themselves, and especially the alligators (and their bear). They had one hundred gators. That must have been expensive. And didn't anyone need to care for them when everyone took off?
I also had a hard time imagining that a company would want a brand new pilot with zero experience flying their tourists around. It was convenient for the plot, but hard to believe.
Finally, what is the significance of the red alligator? It was miraculous and very important to Ava, so I was expecting it to be more important in the plot. Ava was keeping it a secret from her family, planning on using it to save them. She keeps it with her constantly. But in the end, she uses the alligator to save herself. Maybe that's the point where she finally gave up on them.
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