Book Talk: Owens, ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’

In Barkley Cove, North Carolina, there are two designations: People and swamp trash. The Clarks are the latter. They live in a shack and subsist on whatever’s left of Papa Clarks’s disability check from the government after he’s gambled some of it away and drunk most of the rest. And when he’s inebriated, he’s violent, often taking his frustrations out on his wife. Finally, after another beating, she packs up her cardboard suitcase and leaves while he’s passed out.

One by one, the older children drift away, until only “Kya” and her slightly older brother Jodie are left. Then, Jodie leaves. After a while, Papa Clark disappears, and 6-year-old Kya is on her own. 

Her one day in school is so humiliating that she never returns. Unable to read or write or even count past 29, Kya learns to live off the land. When she goes to the Piggly Wiggly for grits, she doesn’t know the value of the coins her father left behind. Finally, she discovers that the store at Jumpin’s, where she goes to get gas for her little motorboat, has everything she needs. So, Jumpin’, a benevolent black man, becomes her grocer and friend.