This story spans from 1952-1970 and twists a tale of lonely, wild “Marsh Girl,” Kya Clark, and how she manages to become the accused murderer of South Carolina town jock-royalty. Sounds amazing, right?
Delia Owen’s first novel follows young Kya — deemed “Marsh Girl” by her community — through the abandonment of her youth and into adulthood. Kya is an enigma to her community, as she lives in a shack outside of town and never assimilates into Barkley Cove’s societal norms. Kya’s sweet mother left without a trace one afternoon that Kya remembers clearly, and shortly after left each one of her siblings until it was just Kya and Pa, a volatile man whose alcoholism drives him out of Kya’s life as well. Then left only her, her shack, and the marsh.
“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.”
Readers almost sigh with relief when Kya is the only Clark remaining, though we realize there is harsh reality coming. Kya, who hasn’t a penny to her name, a stitch of fresh food or even running electricity in her shack, seems so wholly content with her Pa leaving. It is then she can take his boat and go explore the marsh the way she always wanted. She figures out how to make a small wage shuffling mussels and dried fish, and even has her first fling with a boy she meets out fishing, Tate Walker. Kya’s self-sufficiency at such a young age is remarkable, and while reading we often lose track of Kya’s age.
It is sad to see a shift halfway through the novel from Kya’s dreamy naturalistic experience to a more concrete drama that comes in the form of what else, a boy. Tate up and left Kya to head off to college, and Kya’s lonely heart brings up past insecurities of abandonment and loneliness. Not long after does she find herself in yet another relationship — this time a secret one with none other than Chase Andrews, star quarterback and heartthrob of Barkley Cove, though Kya wouldn’t know that. He hunts down the mysterious Marsh Girl and conquests her, and Kya falls because, well, why wouldn’t she? The relationship between the two of them is what leads Kya to be named suspect #1 when Chase’s drowned body is found in the marsh one night.
“A lot of times, love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.”
So much about this novel is gorgeous, from the scene-setting to the language to how captured we feel by Kya’s plight, yet contentment that if nothing ever changed, she would be just fine. Owens captures something incredible when it comes to Kya’s experiences in the marsh: stillness and solitude. Pages on pages are just descriptors of Kya’s surroundings, but the language matches the quietude of being alone in nature. The story is interwoven as well, with Kya’s story side-by-side with the discovery of Chase’s body and the investigation into his death, until the two crash together.
Kya’s relationship with Chase is the most disappointing aspect of the story for me, just because of his horrible characterization. But, without him, there is no catalyst for a murder mystery, and discovering what truly happened is shocking and has an incredible payout. The book really kept me reading and I blew through it, nonetheless. It gets a solid 4/5 from me and I absolutely recommend it.
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