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1-Page Summary of Where the Crawdads Sing
Overall Summary
Where the Crawdads Sing is a novel by Delia Owens. Published in 2018, it’s a New York Times bestseller and was selected by Reese Witherspoon for her book club. It takes place in North Carolina from the 1940s to 2000, and tells the story of Kya, who grows up alone after her family leaves her.
In Part 1 of the novel, two boys discover a body in the marshes on the outskirts of Barkley Cove, North Carolina. They suspect that it is Chase Edwards, who was a hometown hero. However, they soon realize that he has been murdered by Catherine “Kya” Clark (the Marsh Girl), who lives alone in those marshes. In flashbacks throughout this section we learn about Kya’s life and how she came to live there. She grew up with an abusive father until her mother left them for another man when Kya was young. Her father disappeared when she was 16 years old and she lived alone until adulthood where she met Tate Walker at 18 years old and fell in love with him but he eventually abandoned her for college while leaving his dog behind as well; this caused Kya to lose trust in people which led her to live alone ever since then..
The story begins with Kya, a nineteen-year old girl. She is dating Chase, who is an athlete and promises to wait until she’s ready for sex. They have sex for the first time after which he disappears from her life for a few weeks. The relationship ends when she finds out that Chase has gotten engaged to another woman.
Tate contacts Kya and tries to apologize, but she doesn’t accept the apology. However, Tate is able to convince her to take him around the reservation so he can take some of her drawings with him when he leaves. The publisher then publishes them as a book in 1968 and pays Kya royalties for it, which she uses to buy back their land from the government.
The story returns to the present day, when Chase’s murderer is finally caught. The sheriff and deputy have found clues about a relationship between Kya and Chase. They also discover that he assaulted her, which led them to believe she killed him in revenge.
Kya is tried for Chase’s murder. She refuses to plea bargain, even though the prejudice against people from the marsh is prevalent in her town. Kya has an alibi—she took a bus to Greenville, North Carolina, to meet with her editor about another book. Many townspeople saw her get on and off the bus that night, so she was outside of town when Chase died. The prosecution’s shoddy evidence convinces the jury to acquit Kya.
Eventually, Kya marries Tate and they live a long life together on the marsh. They have a peaceful existence until Kya dies at age 64. After her death, Tate discovers that she wrote poems about murdering Chase. He burns the poems and it’s never mentioned again in the book.
Prologue: (1969)
The narrator contrasts the swamp (murky) and the marsh (airy). The body of Chase Andrews is found in a marsh.
Part 1, Chapter 1: “Ma” (1952)
In 1952, a six-year-old girl named Kya watched her mother walk away from their shack for the last time. Her older brother Jodie tried to reassure her that mothers in the wild don’t leave their young for long, but she didn’t believe him because they lived in the marshland where people were too desperate or too shiftless to move on.
The day before, Kya noticed her mother had bruises on her forehead. Her father was likely responsible for the bruise due to his violent tendencies. Although Kya waited for her mother to return, she did not come back and the family settled into a routine without her.
Part 1, Chapter 2: “Jodie” (1952)
Kya’s family is disappearing. Her father beats them and they get tired of it, so they leave one by one. Kya has to take care of herself because her father is on a drinking binge. She takes care of the house for three days until he comes back home and burns most of Ma’s things, including paintings that she made before she disappeared. Since Pa has a small disability payment from his time in WW2, he gives that money to Kya and tells her to keep house for him in exchange for this money. She goes shopping with it but people call her “swamp trash” or ignore her when she talks to them at the grocery store because she doesn’t know how to count past twenty-nine. But since Pa wants the house clean all the time, Kya keeps up with the chores even though Ma never returns after seven years pass.
