A Spectacular Tale

Earlier this year I received an email from my kid sister who lives in British Columbia. She wrote about a book that she had read for her monthly Book Club meeting. Since I had never heard of the book or the author I decided to do a little digging.

The author, Delia Owens, is an American author and zoologist who was born in southern Georgia and grew up riding horses in the woods around her family’s home in Thomasville – slightly over 200 miles from Atlanta.

In 2018 her fictional book, (that takes place in North Carolina) and is called “Where the Crawdads Sing,” was published. By December 2019 it had sold over 4.5 million copies. As of January of this year, Crawdads has spent 124 weeks as a New York Times Best Seller.

Last, but not least, the movie production company owned by Reese Witherspoon (another southern dynamo) has plans for a Crawdads film. CLICK HERE to read our 2020 blog about Witherspoon who grew up in Nashville.

On the right side of the cover it says, “The Worldwide Sensation” and inside you’ll see, “More Than 10 Million Copies Sold Worldwide”

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The best way to describe this book is that it is a “page turner” – but in my opinion that’s too trite – it’s much more than that. I purchased the book at the Amazon bookstore (on 34th Street, just off Fifth Avenue in NYC) and arrived home around 4:00 pm in the afternoon. I sat down and thought I’d take a quick look at it: big mistake. HUGE.

It grabbed me in such a way that I couldn’t move: I read straight through (no dinner) all night (no sleep) and into the morning until 11 am (no breakfast). When I finally got up I could barely move I was so stiff – then I crashed.

I’m purposely keeping the story itself brief because I don’t want to spoil Crawdads for those who haven’t read it. Briefly, it describes the life of a young girl named Kya who grows up isolated in the marsh of North Carolina from 1952 to 1969. Her mother and, later her father, abandon her – as well as the rest of the family. As she gets older, she faces prejudice from the local folks and is called “The Marsh Girl.”

Later, she falls in love with a young man named Tate Walker who heads for college and promises to return but doesn’t. Then, at 19 she has another romantic relationship with a playboy named Chase Andrews who promises marriage. Her hopes are dashed when she reads of his engagement with another in the local newspaper. She retaliates in a stunning way that you will never guess in a million years. JUST READ THE BOOK.

I’M HOOKED: A 2ND BOOK

After I recovered, I took a good look at the book and saw that “Cry of the Kalahari” by Mark and Delia Owens was listed as a previous publication by these authors. I have always been interested in deserts because when I was growing up, we used to drive through Washington to Spokane and up to the US/Canada border to see relatives. This meant going through the Yakima Valley desert. That’s where we’d smell sagebrush and see tumbleweed rolling along – a real treat.  

Delia Owns and her husband Mark spent seven years looking closely at the wildlife in the Kalahari Desert – a vast area of Southern Africa

The Kalahai book was published in 1984 so I wasn’t sure if Amazon would have it. They didn’t. So I headed up to Barnes and Noble at 46th and Fifth where they ordered it for me.

Here is an excellent write-up from the back of the Kalahari book, “Carrying little more than a change of clothes and a pair of binoculars, two young Americans caught a plane to Africa, bought a third-hand Land Rover truck and drove deep into the Kalahari Desert. There they lived for seven years, in an unexplored area with no roads, no people and no source of water. In this vast wilderness they began their research, working alongside animals that had never seen humans. This is the story of life with lions, brown hyenas, jackals, giraffes and many other creatures.

WHY RATHBONE MANSIONS? Well, we can’t promise any hair-raising adventures if you stay with us. But we’ll do our best to make your New Orleans visit as pleasant as possible with: comfy beds, our pristine pool and hands-on service that you’ll love. Come, you deserve it!  

Shaun Nelson-Henrick