What Secret Asian Girl is Reading: Swamplandia!

Probably one of the most unusual novels I've read in awhile. Swamplandia! is creative writing at its best and reminds me of some very good juvenile fiction targeted towards more open-minded audiences. I don't see this one making it in to many Book Club circles, but this is precisely the type of book I'd like to discuss (which may explain why I'm not welcome in most Book Clubs). Author Karen Russell is obscenely young (28)  - and is named as one of the New York Times' prestigious 20 Under 40 best fiction writers of the year and deservedly so. I'm impressed and disgusted at the same time. Swamplandia! is an impressive work: quirky, heart rending and achingly honest all at the same time.  Like a bad car wreck, you want to look away but you can't. Our protagonist, 12 year old Ava Bigtree is part of an eccentric family who owns and operates an Alligator Wrestling Theme Park called Swamplandia! in the humid, murky swamps of Florida. At one time, the park was the talk of the everglades but hard times and changing entertainment preferences have put the park, and the family, into dire financial straits. To make matters worse, the star of the park, Ava's mom, Hilola Bigtree, has died from cancer. As you can imagine, a family that wrestles gators for a living has a "different" take on life and handles this crisis in a non-typical manner. The kids (older sister Osceola "Ossie" and older brother Kiwi) are pretty much left on their own while their father, Chief Bigtree (whose Indian name has no ties to any Native American tribe), slowly spins out of control in his personal grief.  Ava imagines herself as her mother's gator-wrestling successor, "performing in the moonlight" as her mother did. Disgusted by their impending financial implosion and their dad's inability to save them, 16 year old Kiwi leaves home to find work at the newly built, so-advanced-it's-not-even-competition park, World of Darkness. His plan is to earn enough money to save Swamplandia!, and therefore, his family. When he discovers that he owes his new employers more money than he earns, he begins to understand the weird bubble his parents raised him in. Ossie's grief, meanwhile, manifests itself in beyond-the-grave ways, immersing herself in Ouija boards and self-imposed trances. She even believes that she's in love with a dead dredge man, accidentally killed while clearing the swamps of invasive plant life during a 1930's government-subsidized WPA whoopsies mission. All this drama takes place in the now abandoned and increasingly creepy amusement park overrun with deadly alligators that they call home. Among the Bigtree Museum are artifacts from generations of Bigtree family life: a yellowed wedding dress, gator skulls and the like. When Chief leaves his family to pursue another terrible plan (something about a salute to Darwinism), the sisters are left alone with little food or money. Ossie departs soon after to find the entrance to the Underworld so she can be with her imaginary dead lover. This leaves poor Ava alone and exposed to the glaring reality of life outside of her strange family. She sets off to find Ossie before her sister enters the dreaded Underworld and in her innocence discovers that gators with razor sharp teeth are marshmallows compared to the ugliest segments of humanity. Although the reader's instinct to want to save Ava is strong, at least as motivating is the feeling that Ava needs to wake up and realize that while her parents' eccentricities were endearing and unusual, they also became a handicap to the kids' preparation for life. This is a handbook in bad parenting skills. The descriptive narrative is excellent and you can actually feel the humid hopelessness of the failing park.  I also loved the historical background on the area and the facts surrounding the government's attempts to fix something that wasn't broken. Ava is a modern day Mockingbird's Scout, whose big heart and wide-eyed courage transcends the best intentions of her gator-loving family. This novel is a big bite of delicious storytelling when you're hungry for a satisfying read. Ugh. That even made ME gag. Just read it.