Swamplandia!
The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline. And Swamplandia!, the family's island home and theme park, in the Florida Everglades, has sophisticated competition - The World of Darkness. Ava is a resourceful, but terrified twelve-year-old, who must manage seventy gators, and the vast landscape of her grief. Her mother, Swamplandia!'s star attraction, has just died; her sister is having an affair with a ghost called the Dredgeman; her Grandpa has been sent to an old folk's home; her brother has defected to The World of Darkness to keep the family afloat; and her father is AWOL. To save them, Ava must journey on her own to a perilous part of the swamp called the Underworld, a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
This is book will forever remain in my heart as the last book I ever bought at a Borders. And it's one of the best things I've read in a long time. It's not everyone's cuppa, but it sure as hell was mine.
Based off of a short story, originally found in St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Russell's made a few changes. The premise says it all: a family that wrestles alligators at their own amusement park until their business fails after two events. First, the matron dies, then a newer, bigger amusement park moves into town. Karen Russell has a sound story right there, but it wasn't batshit crazy enough for her. Oh no. Because next the oldest Bigtree child runs away to work at the new, competing amusement park and rescue the family from financial doom. Their father goes off in search of the son (we can assume), leaving his two daughters off on their own, fending for themselves. The older sister falls in love with a ghost. Then Ava goes after her sister to rescue her from the underworld with a Birdman. Whatever that means.
Reading this novel is like reading poetry. Russell writes creatively and beautifully, and like poetry if she's too direct, but far out there it doesn't process. I suppose this is why no one reads poetry anymore.
Based off of a short story, originally found in St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Russell's made a few changes. The premise says it all: a family that wrestles alligators at their own amusement park until their business fails after two events. First, the matron dies, then a newer, bigger amusement park moves into town. Karen Russell has a sound story right there, but it wasn't batshit crazy enough for her. Oh no. Because next the oldest Bigtree child runs away to work at the new, competing amusement park and rescue the family from financial doom. Their father goes off in search of the son (we can assume), leaving his two daughters off on their own, fending for themselves. The older sister falls in love with a ghost. Then Ava goes after her sister to rescue her from the underworld with a Birdman. Whatever that means.
Reading this novel is like reading poetry. Russell writes creatively and beautifully, and like poetry if she's too direct, but far out there it doesn't process. I suppose this is why no one reads poetry anymore.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.