An alligator wrestling Florida theme park, Swamplandia! Is trying to stay financially afloat after losing their main attraction, Hilola Bigtree diving into an alligator pit and swimming to the other side. 

Started by a White Ohioan family who changed their name and masqueraded as Native Americans, the Bigtrees did okay until Hilola (mom) died of cancer and the Chief (dad) took a side job on the mainland, leaving three teenage kids to fend for themselves with no tourists and piles of bills. 

Kiwi, the oldest, feels compelled to take a job on the mainland to try to dig them out of debt. Osceola falls in love with ghosts and follows one deep into the sawgrass marshland to marry him. And Ava, the youngest, heads into the swamp with a creepy stranger to find her delusional sister.  

A disaster in the making, it’s both painful to watch and somewhat entertaining to read because the story is creative, chaotic, unbelievable and sort of believable, haunting, and wild. Swamp girl looks for ghost girl while mainland boy nearly fails at an entry level job in a competing theme park but later becomes a seaplane pilot. Dad is MIA through all of it. 

But it’s also a strange mix of comedy, horror, adventure, satire, tragedy, realism, and magical realism. Too many modes for my taste, but underneath this mishmash of plot lines and elements lies the bones of an inventive idea and many excellent images, sentences, and details.

A 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist for fiction 🤷🏼‍♀️

I liked Russell’s most recent book, “The Antidote,” much better. 3⭐️