Swamplandia!

By: Karen Russell

Narrated by: Arielle Sitrick, David Ackroyd

Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

From the celebrated 29-year-old author of the everywhere-heralded short-story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (“How I wish these were my own words, instead of the breakneck demon writer Karen Russell’s...Run for your life. This girl is on fire” - Los Angeles Times Book Review) comes a blazingly original debut novel that takes us back to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine.

The Bigtree alligator-wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, formerly number one in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava’s father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified 13, to manage 98 gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief.

Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, Karen Russell has written an utterly singular novel about a family’s struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking. An arrestingly beautiful and inventive work from a vibrant new voice in fiction.

©2011 Karen Russell (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

“[Russell] has thrown the whole circus of her heart onto the page, safety nets be damned. . . . Russell has deep and true talent.” ( San Francisco Chronicle)

“Vividly worded, exuberant in characterization, the novel is a wild ride. . . . This family, wrestling with their desires and demons . . . will lodge in the memories of anyone lucky enough to read Swamplandia!” ( The New York Times Book Review)

“The bewitching Swamplandia! is a tremendous achievement.”( Entertainment Weekly)

Great book!

While I’ll agree that it was a bit lacking by the end, I lived this book. The characters were deep and funny and I rooted for every move they made. Highly suggest this one to people.

Sometimes Brilliant, Sometimes Disappointing

I am wrestling with myself (not alligators) about how I feel after listening to this book. This book is listed in Stephen King's top ten books you MUST read so I took his advice. I had also read a rave review from Carl Hiaasen, my expectations were quite high. And yes, I do love the premise of this story.
Ms. Russell does a beautiful job of inviting us into the swamp, we feel the heat, see the waterways, smell the wild orchids. She makes the run down theme park Swamplandia! come alive and that entertains. Throughout Ms. Russell produces beautiful prose that makes this book special.
However, I just can't join in the praise for the Bigtree tribe. Mother Hilola (think Esther Williams swimming with gators) is the star performer , Father the Chief runs the show, son Kiwi and daughters Osceola and Ava (the main character, an alligator wrestler in training) are home schooled kids who's stories drive the plot.
In the first few chapters tragedy strikes, the old theme park looses it's star performer Hilola. The children each react in their own way, and from that point on nothing goes right in the world at Swamplandia!
Although there are so many things I loved about this book, I think the narrator Arielle Sitrick does this book a terrible disservice. Her tween voice would be fine if she had read this book with even a little passion and feeling. Her narration was flat and failed miserably. Even in the most interesting parts, this narrator made me too often not care what happened next. I can usually overlook a sub-par narrator, but this time, I was so confused, I kept trying to figure out if it was truly the narrator, the prose or me. I think narrator
There were moments I couldn't put the book down, and moments I wanted to just walk away from this book.
I also felt that Kiwi' s part of the story was weak, perhaps if this part had been stronger and more engaging maybe the bad narration (female reader) could have been mitigated.
Maybe reading this book in text is a better bet.

Interesting story but not a great performance.

Any additional comments?

This is an engaging story but one of the readers was not up to audible.com standards and made it more difficult to connect to the characters.

Great story, TERRIBLE readers

I am shocked at how bad the readers are on this book. The young woman mispronounced multiple words, including those that would be basic to a swamp dweller’s vocabulary: gunwale, starboard, etc. While she is clearly near to the age of the character, the male narrator is an adult, not a teen as indicated in the text. Why have a child read if you don’t also have a teen? The presentation felt lazy and careless. This book deserves much better.

Swamplandia

I didn't think the readers fit the story, but the male voice was better and easier to listen to.

I'm not sure about the narration.

I'm not sure if I just didn't like Ava's character through the narration, or if it was the book itself. The story seemed to drag until the middle of the book. Some of the things that happened early in the book didn't affect the story and seemed to slow it down. I don't like the way the sexual assault was handled. It was a plot point then was dismissed from the narrative. Overall, it was just okay.

great story

I enjoyed listening to this a lot and would recommend it. The story is original and just a smidge fantastical. However, the performance was a little odd. First, the younger female reader seemed inexperienced-- at times she seemed unsure how to pronounce a word or deliver the appropriate emotion that was part of a scene. Also, it seemed weird to have two different readers for the two different character perspectives. It might have made sense if the male voice had also been younger (ie why have a middle-aged man read a teenage boys part?).-- Certainly didn't ruin the story for me but worth mentioning.

Wonderful exploration of a family's love

Karen Russell has a remarkable talent for creating stunning images with perfect and fresh similes and metaphors. She creates a world that is part the real world of the Florida swamp, so vivid you want to swat the mosquitoes and dodge the alligators, and part the world of ghosts and the human underworld. But even better, she creates the world of children struggling desperately to survive a terrible loss and another terrible threat and surviving through love for one another and their parents. And she has created a wonderful character, Ava, a child whose voyage down the river Styx and back to humanity brings us into this fascinating world. Congratulations too to Arielle Sitrick who perfectly captures Ava in her reading.

Beautifully written tale about family

I thought this was a magical, beautifully written book-- I found it engrossing. Karen Russell is clearly extraordinarily talented.

Regarding the narrator: At first I was also put off by her voice and tone, but I quickly got over it. For me, the narration definitely did not ruin the book. As most of the book is written in the voice of a 14 year old girl, the narrator was probably an appropriate choice, even though I didn't love her performance.

Awesome writer, garbled female narrator

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Every once in a while, I listen to a great book that I have to stop listening to and buy the written version. This is such an audible book. I am enthralled by the writing of this book and the story (the unique setting and characters) but I miss so much of the narration that I have to continuously rewind to catch what the narrator is saying and sometimes, even after two tries, I still cannot get it. The narrator sounds like the character she is speaking but her diction is so imprecise that it has spoiled the audible book for me. After listening to well over 100 Audible books, this is the only the second time this has happened.

Could you see Swamplandia! being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Given the banality of what Hollywood puts out, this book would be a welcome film.