REVIEW OF #63 WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING

 Review by Tom Wells

When I was a high school freshman, my English teacher gave us a lesson on the five elements of a story: Plot; Theme; Character; Conflict; and Setting. The last may seem like the least essential, but it’s what sets this book apart. “Crawdads” is the first effort at a novel by 70-year-old Delia Owen, a zoologist who lived most of her adulthood in Africa and wrote with her husband three books about the flora and fauna of the savannah.  Now she’s struck out on her own and managed to parlay her academic background into the evocation of a Setting that could not be less savannah-like: a humid, spongey marsh on the North Carolina outer banks. She immerses the reader in the smell and the taste and the feel of her created world, one where characters of extraordinary intelligence, kindness and determination prevail over ignorance, privilege and cruelty. Yes, it’s a place that could only exist in fiction, but it’s one I loved smelling, tasting, feeling and being in. 

****½