Swamplandia!

 It may be a shock to learn that I get most of my book recommendations from Entertainment Weekly. Ok, maybe not that big of a shock considering the constant stream of pop culture references I make here and my addiction to Bravo TV and Perez Hilton. I should be scouring Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker or some other fancy “literary” journal or magazine, but let’s face it, after 2 years of graduate school the last thing I want is to read a bunch of academic gobbledygook. I trust Entertainment Weekly to give me a good mix of highbrow literature and news about the next Harry Potter movie (out next month! Whoo!). It was this review and a place on their Best Books of 2010 list that made me read Swamplandia!

If I had to make a comparison, (which I guess I don’t, but let’s just say you asked), Swamplandia! calls to mind The Devine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and anything by Fanny Flagg. Her style sets you in the middle of the deep slow south where the heat and mosquitoes make you lethargic and a little dizzy. I love a good southern family drama (Sweet Home Alabama has been on a lot lately, and I keep watching it – so I also love a good southern romantic comedy too) and Karen Russell includes all the complexity of hidden secrets, forbidden romances and eccentric grandparents of a Tennessee Williams play in her story.

A good portion of the second half of the story centers on little Ava Bigtree and her adventure in the swamp with a mysterious Bird Man. Russell had my heart pounding with suspense, concern and stomach churning thoughts of “oh please, don’t let what I think is about to happen to this little girl be where we are going” to the point that I could not stop reading. I needed to know that Ava was OK. I won’t spoil the story for you… so let’s just call it a lesson in how to make a reader nervous to the very pit of their being.

I am going to Florida this summer and have been trying to convince The Boyfriend that we need to take an air boat tour of the Everglades. If what we find out there is half as good as what I found in Swamplandia!, it’ll be worth the trip.