Swamplandia!

Finalist for 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction 

Longlisted for the 2011 Women's Prize For Fiction & the 2011 Orange Prize 

"Stripped down, Swamplandia!, Karen Russell's debut novel, is one more young writer's saga of a dysfunctional family. But Russell is a rare talent." — Jane Ciabattari, NPR

Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home & gator wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos. Her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, & her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness. 

As Ava sets out on a mission through the magical swamps to save them all, we are drawn into a lush & bravely imagined debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality, a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine.

"Ms Russell is one in a million. The proof is in Swamplandia!, a novel about alligator wrestlers, a balding brown bear named Judy Garland, a Bird Man specializing in buzzard removal, a pair of duelling Florida theme parks, rampaging melaleuca trees, a Ouija board & the dead but still flirtatious Louis Thanksgiving. Sound appealing? No, it does not. Unless Ms Russell had you at ‘alligator wrestlers’ — not likely — you may well recoil at every noxiously fanciful item on that list... But wait. Ms Russell knows how to use bizarre ingredients to absolutely irresistible effect … " — Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Russell has perfected a tone of deadpan wit and imperilled innocence that I find deeply endearing…you never know when a riptide of tragedy might pull away the humour of Swamplandia!" — Ron Charles, The Washington Post