Swamplandia!

AUTHOR: Karen Russell

PUBLISHED: 2011  

GENRE: Fiction

Question: when you have a storyline about a girl venturing into the Florida everglades with the Bird Man and her red alligator to save her sister from a ghostly fiancé, is it really necessary to have an entirely separate story line about their brother working at an amusement park?

Karen Russell apparently though so.

Swamplandia! is a run-down park and museum found in the Ten Thousand Islands off southwest Florida, where tourists come to watch children wrestle alligators and a beautiful woman swim amongst the beasts.  (Swamplandia! is always written with the exclamation point at the end.  It gets very old very fast.)  The park is run by the Bigtree family – famous alligator wrangler Hilola, her husband Sam (a.k.a. the Chief), and their kids, Kiwi, Osceola, and Ava.  When Hilola dies, the show dies with her, and the rest of the family splinters off in different directions, each trying to save the park and themselves. 

It’s a great idea for a story – the exoticness of alligator wresting, and the distinct separation of the family from society.  But Russell just pours so much detail into every waking moment that you just end up overwhelmed by it all.  When the detail starts repeating itself, it gets worse.  There is Just. So. Much. in this book.  Most annoying is the World of Darkness, the mainland park that’s a Six Flags from hell, almost literally – the entire thing is designed like a living Inferno, with where customers go swimming in the Lake of Fire and ride into the belly of the beast.  It’s a heavy-handed metaphor for something, but damned if I know what.  As a result, the whole thing is just ridiculous.

Back on the islands, Ava and Osceola, left alone by their father and brother, are drawn further and further into a world of either supernatural beings or their own imaginations. All that switching back and forth between ghosts in the glades and a grungy water park made for a very jarring read.  I forced my way through most of the book, and found myself scanning most of the second half instead of reading it.  I wanted to know how it turned out.  I just didn’t want to have to read the rest of it. 

LENGTH: 416 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Yes.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: I found it very unsatisfying, especially the tidy ending.  But it’s been getting high praise out the wazoo.  (Wazoo being a scientific term, of course.  “Wazoo, from the Latin wazootus. Noun.  The hindquarters of an animal.  Also known as the rump, backside, or ass.”  Straight from the OED, that is.*)

*It’s been a long day.  Can you tell it’s been a long day?  I’ll stop now.