Swamplandia! has an intriguing setup: a gator-wrestling theme park located in the fringes of Florida, near the swampy Ten Thousand Islands. It's family-run, a modest operation. But when Swamplandia!'s headliner and matriarch dies, the family (and park) experiences a downward spiral, hitting rock bottom more than a year after her death. Swamplandia! closes and the Bigtree clan spends the summer apart: the Chief making money on the mainland to pay off debts, Kiwi working at the rival park, Osceola running off with a ghost; and Ava (our protagonist and mostly-narrator) goes off on a journey to find her, accompanied by a shady character known only as "the Bird Man."
Now gator wrestlers, theme parks, ghosts, and a journey to the underworld seem like a recipe for a delightfully goofy (if somewhat creepy) story. Not quite. About halfway through, the plot takes a dark turn (way darker than I was expecting) that made me want to put the book down for a while. I did not expect rape and fights to the near-death in this story. Hell no. So I thought why the fuck is this shit in here? And the answer is that once you take away all the larger-than-life trappings, it's nothing more than a variant of the coming-of-age novel, lost virginity/innocence and all. There's nothing wrong with being a coming-of-age novel, but you have to be original with more than just your set pieces. So much of the novel is amazingly mundane--especially as we see more of the mainland world--which is still wacky to an extent (especially to the isolated islanders of the Bigtree clan) that it's not that much different from your typical literary novel.The novel's not all mediocrity though. The depiction of the swampland makes it seem magical, thanks to Russell's vivid descriptions and Ava's childlike perspective (and I love the nakedly ridiculous moments on the mainland). It's at times borderline cartoonlike in its representation of theme parks and mainland antics (is there an Adult Swim cartoon about a theme park? If not, I call dibs!) I really preferred this as a comic novel, with less heavy stuff--it would have been more fun, at least. I actually kind of liked it until the story took that dark turn.
Russell reminds me somewhat of Stacey Richter, who really cranks up the ridiculousness levels in some short stories, mixing the light stuff up with the heavy. But at least Richter didn't rationalize the incredibility of her stories' premises, writing off ghosts as symptoms of a mental illness and the underworld as a place pervs lure you to rape you (Russell really had me going there--for a minute I believed in the Underworld as much as Ava did, and was probably more crushed than she was when I realized it was a ruse--was I really so eager to believe that something fantastic would happen?) And Richter isn't the best writer, either. I do also see a resemblance of Russell to Kelly Link and George Saunders, whom she does credit as influences. (I was reminded of Saunders' story "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline", which I liked...but I'm also not a fan of Kelly Link. She's good, but her stories annoy the shit out of me. But that's another post.)
In summation, the family separates, and comes back together at the end of the summer. The children have changed, and they leave the island behind. And that's another thing. The ending was rushed and too brief--there's not even a mention of the last time they see their island; the narrator absent of affect, as if that summer robbed her of the ability to feel emotion. She says they'll stay strong, but she sounds so weak. I expect that life on the mainland would be a drag for them, devoid of the enchantment of the wilds. There's no mention of what Ava's doing. So much for a happy ending.
What bugs me the most about it is how ordinary it turned out to be: Osceola wants romance, Kiwi wants a career, and Ava wants to be like her mother. Sound familiar? I felt a strange sense of deja-vu all throughout the novel, as if I've heard the same story from a different voice before.The setting and characters are pretty unusual, but the story isn't. When it comes down to it, the Bigtrees aren't that different from your typical family--they just seem strange because they ran their own theme park, and thus are eccentric. (I can't be the only one who was disappointed that there weren't more theme park shenanigans) In the end the story is tragic--they've lost their mother and their home--and they learn to move on. Nothing too original or innovative there.
Karen Russell has potential--if she keeps at it, this could be the worst book she ever writes (and really, it's not that bad)--but there was no need to inflate her ego with meaningless praise. When you strip away the trappings that make Swamplandia! extraordinary, you have a novel that is saddeningly ordinary. The literary establishment succeeds in fooling us again. 3 stars out of 5.
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