Throughout the book, she dwells lovingly on the endangered beauties of South Florida's Ten Thousand Islands, from the 'glacial spires of a long oyster bed' to a 'sky-flood' of moths with sapphire-tipped wings. Ava's voice, which shifts fluidly from preternatural wisdom to vulnerable cluelessness, rings true to her age. It's an odyssey fraught with dangers - snakes, storms, cougars, hunters, thirst, mosquitoes and an increasingly ominous Bird Man - and Russell ratchets up the suspense at each turn. A huge chunk of the novel revolves around Ava's attempts to track down Ossie in the underworld, a days-long journey through haunted swamp, with a half-crazy outlier known as the Bird Man. She is as agile at describing the creatures and characters of swampland Florida as she is at offering accounts of Ava's youthful yearnings and Kiwi's humiliating low-level job at a competing theme park. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, published in 2006.Īfter this contemporary Southern Gothic opening, Russell - recently included on The New Yorker's '20 under 40' list of standout young writers - takes us through a breathtaking series of spins. The story of Swamplandia! first appeared in 'Ava Wrestles the Aligator,' from Russell's collection of short stories, St. Karen Russell was born in Miami and now lives in New York. The novel is predominantly narrated by Ava, who is determined to wrestle as well as her mother and who cares most about the survival of Swamplandia and of her family.

The teenage Bigtree children - son Kiwi, daughter Ossie and Ava, the youngest at 13 - all work with the gators. Below her, 'dozens of alligators their icicle overbites and the awesome diamonds of their heads through 300,000-plus gallons of filtered water.' Hilola's husband, who calls himself Chief Bigtree, provides the dramatic voiceover and follows her with a spotlight to build suspense. Four nights a week, Hilola climbs the ladder above the Gator Pit and takes a daredevil dive into danger. Mom Hilola Bigtree, the 'swamp centaur,' is the star performer and core of the family business, adept at the arcane art of alligator wrestling. Russell's setting, the outlandish and fading coastal Florida theme park from which the book takes it title, is inhabited by a clan of 'Bigtrees,' a self-invented showbiz tribe who have no Seminole or Miccosukee blood but adopt the costumes of buckskin vests, headbands, feathers and gator 'fang' necklaces nonetheless. Her book has its roots in 'Ava Wrestles the Alligator,' a short story from her first collection, 2006's St. Stripped down, Swamplandia!, Karen Russell's debut novel, is one more young writer's saga of a dysfunctional family.

Swamplandia author