Swamplandia!
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| Author | Karen Russell |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Luther D. Bradley |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Bildungsroman, Magic realism |
| Publisher | Knopf |
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Publication date
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1 February 2011 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 336 pp (First edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
| LC Class | PS3618.U755 S93 2011 |
Swamplandia! is a 2011 novel by Karen Russell. Set in the Ten Thousand Islands, off the southwest coast of Florida, it is the story of the Bigtree family of alligator wrestlers who live on Swamplandia!, an alligator-wrestling theme park. Swamplandia! is Russell's first novel. The book originated as a short story, titled "Ava Wrestles the Alligator", published in the Summer 2006 issue of the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story, when Russell was 24 years old.
The novel opens with the Bigtree family suffering tragedy and finding their way of life under threat. The family patriarch, Sawtooth Bigtree, has recently been confined to a floating nursing home with dementia and his daughter-in-law, Hilola Bigtree, has died of cancer, leaving behind a husband and three teenage children. Meanwhile, a brand new amusement park, The World of Darkness, has opened nearby on the Florida mainland. In light of plummeting attendance and mounting debts, The Chief, Hilola's husband, unveils a plan for improvements to Swamplandia!, but his son Kiwi is skeptical and suggests selling the park altogether. Having grown up on Swamplandia! himself, the Chief is adamantly opposed to abandoning his family's unique heritage and lifestyle.
The Chief's middle child, Osceola, becomes obsessed with ghosts and with occult knowledge she's gleaned from an old book, The Spiritist's Telegraph. Osceola begins to hold seances with her younger sister Ava attempt to contact their dead mother. Osceola's loneliness and inability to talk with her mother drives her to talk to dead "boyfriends". Osceola sometimes disappears at night leading her sister to worry that she might be possessed by spirits.
Meanwhile, Kiwi continues to clash with his father, and he eventually decides to leave the island in an attempt to save Swamplandia! on his own. He finds minimum-wage employment as a janitor at The World of Darkness and eventually befriends his coworker Vijay, who helps him learn to adopt normal teenage vernacular and mannerisms. Kiwi begins to attend night school and is promoted to lifeguard. When he rescues a teenage girl, Kiwi becomes a local hero and, as a result, The World of Darkness sends him to train as an airplane pilot.
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