Research Catalog

Swamplandia! / Karen Russell.

Title: Swamplandia! / Karen Russell.
Author: Russell, Karen, 1981-
Publication: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Book/Text	Request in advance	PS3618.U755 S93 2011	Off-site

Details

Description

315 pages; 25 cm

Summary

Twelve year old Ava must travel into the Underworld part of the swamp in order to save her family's dynasty of Bigtree alligator wrestling. This novel takes us to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine. The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator wrestling theme park, formerly no. 1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava's mother, the park's indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava's father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified thirteen, to manage ninety eight gators as well as her own grief. Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, the author has written a novel about a family's struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking.

Subject

Genre/Form

Fantasy fiction
Fiction.

Note

"This is a Borzoi book"--Title page verso.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Awards (note)

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, 2012.

Contents

The beginning of the end -- The advent of the World of Darkness -- Osceola K. Bigtree in love -- Ava the champion -- Prodigal Kiwi -- Kiwi's exile in the World of Darkness -- The dredge appears -- Kiwi's debt increases -- The Dredgeman's revelation -- Kiwi climbs the ladder -- Ava goes to the underworld -- Kiwi goes to night school -- Welcome to Stiltsville -- The drowning chain -- Help arrives, then departs -- Kiwi Bigtree, world hero -- Ava's eclipse -- Kiwi rolls the dice -- The silently screaming world -- Out to sea -- Mama weeds -- Kiwi takes to the skies -- The end begins.

ISBN

9780307263995
0307263991
9780307276681
0307276686

LCCN

2010036708

OCLC

613432205
SCSB-11266556

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library