Saturday, April 13, 2019

Book Review Where the Crawdads Sing

Delia Owens' debut novel, Where the Crawdads Sing is one of my favorite reads for 2018.
It is a romance, a family saga, a coming of age story, and a murder mystery rolled into one, often poetic, book. Owens writes from a remarkable understanding of nature. A quote from her website reads, "When you can feel the planet beneath your toes and trees moving about, you must listen with all your ears and,--I promise--you will hear the crawdads sing. In fact, it will be a chorus."
This tells me much about the author and her debut novel. Owens spent over two decades studying wildlife in remote regions of Africa. As a result of this research, she makes the case that mammals in strongly bonded groups form those groups of exclusively females. In Where the Crawdads Sing, Kya is a female without a group and desperately wants one. Owens subtly makes the point that female bonding is in our DNA. Kya's mother is the North Carolina marsh and her teachers are the animals that populate the marsh. She is abandoned by her biological mother, siblings and eventually her father. Kya scrapes out a living and a huge education on the water's edge, befriending rare and wonderful characters like Jumpin, the general store and gas station owner, and Tate, the young man and friend of Kys's brother that teaches Kya to read. These people help her in her greatest times of trouble. Throughout the book, the characters are well-drawn and there are good and bad folk in equal measure. The marsh too, becomes a character as well as the town of Barkley Cove. 
I read one review of this book that said the reader did not find Kya's life believable and thus could never engage with the main character. I laughed with the reviewer because I too wondered at a young woman so isolated and yet able to make her way on tired grits and very little else. For me, this wasn't a problem, but a wonder.
If you haven't read this book yet, I highly recommend it. I read it then re-read it because I hated to finish it.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for reading books. Bev

published also at bacoots.com

Friday, April 5, 2019

Chewy has been Sold











Well, I have a gentleman's agreement on the sale of Chewy and I trust the buyer to tell me if he changes his mind. 
My husband and I may have named the truck Chewy because the old Studebaker sounded like Chewbacca when he headed down the road. I wish I could remember for certain. There are so many things I can no longer remember. Never-mind all of that. Chewy is going to a new home. Chewy will be with a family that likes old things and enjoys restoring them. The home even has young'uns interested in old things.
Lonny bought the truck for me when I started a novel that featured a '49 Studebaker truck. When Lonny brought it home and I drove it to Mom and Dad's for the first time, my father put his hands in his pockets and frowned. He shook his head and said, "Studebaker was very good at making wagons. They weren't very good at much else."
I worried some about what my father thought. I respected him, but pretended I hadn't heard. I liked Chewy for his blue paint and round top. I liked him because my husband bought him for me to encourage my writing. It was Lonny's way of saying, "I support you. I may not read what you write, but I'm proud of you."
We used to have fly-ins. My husband and I built an ultralight (which is a story for another time.) We would host other ultralight owners for a few days of games and feasting. 
 I had driven the Studebaker to work the day of one of these fly-ins. I came home just as the planes started arriving.
Lonny waved as I drove up and parked. His grin was broad, as if it wanted to jump off his face and give me a hug. I heard him telling one of the pilots about the truck.
Later he told me how much he enjoyed seeing me drive around in Chewy, how proud he was and how much delight he knew I took in driving the old blue Studebaker.
I remember that day now and wonder at how people can take joy in another's pleasure. It touches me to know that Lonny and I truly delighted in each other's happiness. It touches me that I tried to forget my father's comments. I am glad that I relaxed and drove the old truck even when my father shook his head and complained.
But Chewy is gone now. It is bittersweet. I knew I would never get him running again and I hope his new owner will. I took down the new owner's number. Maybe I'll stay in touch. Maybe I could drive Chewy one more time. Probably not, but life has some strange twists.
Thank you for reading. Bev