The Astonishing Color of Singing Crawdads

Have you read “Where the Crawdads Sing” yet? I’m betting you either have, or are planning to.

 I had heard about this much-ballyhooed bestseller for months before my book club chose to read it. I looked forward to seeing what all the fuss was about. The author, who is also a naturalist, wrote in great detail about the flora and fauna of coastal North Carolina, while penning the tale of a child who basically raised herself in the wild after being abandoned by her family, and, with no education, became a (surprise) renowned naturalist-author.

Only one teensy problem (and I realize I am in the minority): the book is, in my view, a total clunker. Poorly written, with a very obvious plot and unlikable characters speaking nonsense (tortured “old sayings” delivered in an actually offensive “Southern” dialect) I finished it because that’s what I tend to do, but when we gathered to discuss, I told my buddies that, in my opinion, this literary emperor had no clothes.

The very next book I read, which I stumbled upon and had heard nothing about, turned out to be one of the best novels I’ve read in years, “The Astonishing Color of After.” This is a gorgeously written book about a Taiwanese-American teenager who loses her adored mom to suicide. The daughter, Leigh, ends up traveling to Taiwan, where she meets her relatives for the first time and learns a great deal about her family, and herself. Here’s the twist: Leigh becomes convinced that her mother has turned into a giant red bird, and is with her in Taipei. Throughout the story she (and we) catch glimpses of this creature—in flight here, a dropped red feather there. What sounds absurd, is instead one of the truest aspects of the book—perfectly capturing the wild longing for a lost loved one, and the tricks grief plays on the mind and heart. It certainly rang true for me.

For months after my sister Maureen’s fatal car accident 38 years ago, I had a secret, crazy idea: that she was still alive. I hadn’t seen her body in the morgue, which helped the fantasy along, I guess. It was such a strong feeling, anytime I saw a girl on the street or in a store who bore any resemblance to Mo. One night in a restaurant, I was so sure the lovely young girl dining at another table was my sis, that I followed her for blocks when she left.

One might suppose that the magical realism in “Color of After” wouldn’t have worked, but I think it worked beautifully. In contrast, even with painstakingly accurate descriptions of setting, I didn’t buy a single sentence of “Crawdads.” Such is the power of interacting with a book—we bring ourselves, our own stories, into the pages, every single time.

That is why I love being a reader (and a writer too). I encourage you to jump into both books and decide for yourselves. Then, let’s discuss!