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Man! Winter's over, and it's time for summer.
As for spring, it's gone missing. It's hot and sticky outside, and the sun's shining ... very nice!
This week I'll talk about a book named "Swamplandia!"
I know. It's weird. This is the second week in a row that we've had books with titles ending with exclamation marks.
That's the publishing industry for you, I guess.
Okay. Um.
"Swamplandia!" is a strange book. It's about a family of five with a son and two daughters.
They live on an island off South Florida and own a theme park called ... Swamplandia!
It's a park that revolves around alligators. The family performs by wrestling with them.
The mother in the family is also the big star of the show, until she's stricken with cancer.
The entire family has to watch her slowly succumb to the disease.
Once she's dead, the show's lost its star, and the money dries up. The father and son start talking about how to save Swamplandia!
The father's got a bunch of big ideas, but the son, being 17 and therefore knowing everything, thinks those ideas are stupid.
Their arguments build into a major confrontation, and the son vanishes the following day.
He's lit out for the mainland, where he'll work at a successful theme park, learn about how they work, and apply what he learns to Swamplandia!
The father is predictably angered, but decides to put the park first. He tells his teenage daughters -- one's 18, the other's 12 --
that he's leaving for the mainland, too. He needs to find some investors and strike a few deals and will return in three weeks.
The daughters are less than thrilled but are resigned, and after he leaves, they are the only people left on the island.
Oh, and all 50 alligators.
For a few weeks, they work on making sure the gators are still alive and that the shop and restaurant are in good shape.
But the park has to close -- two young girls are not sufficient to keep the attraction running.
One big problem, though, is that the older sister has a boyfriend with a problem: namely, he's dead.
She tends to get possessed by ghosts, although in her mind, "possessed" really means "dating."
Her younger sister starts to wake up in the middle of the night and see that her bed is empty, only to
have her reappear the next morning, covered in dirt and scratches.
Obviously a little odd, and the younger sister suspects that her older sister is a little crazy.
Suddenly, the older sister meets a new ghost, and, of course, falls in love with him right away.
But he tells her that if they're to be together forever, she has to sail out into the ocean and find the gate to the underworld.
The older sister believes him, says goodbye, and sets out in a boat.
And now we're down to one twelve-year-old left on the island, with 50 gators to take care of.
This is not a great situation. She's worried that her crazy sister can't take care of herself, especially out in the middle of the ocean.
It's dangerous! But one day a man shows up. He travels from island to island, getting paid to chase away obnoxious migrating birds.
When he appears, the girl begs him to help her sail out and save her sister's life. And he agrees.
Really, the book has two parallel stories going on: the brother who works on the mainland for that theme park --
see, the entire family was raised on the island, so they know nothing about mainland culture and customs, so this is a real struggle, partly funny and partly sad --
and his little sister, who's traveling with this guy to find their sister.
At this point, I should warn you that some things that happen in this book are far from pleasant.
It can be pretty tough to read. So would I recommend it to just anyone without any reservations whatsoever?
Probably not. It *is* a good book and fabulously well-written, but it isn't light reading for pure leisure.
I'm still trying to decide whether I like it or not. Maybe that means it's a good book -- that sense of ambivalence that keeps it on your mind.
It's possible. I know I'm still thinking about it.
But one thing I really did love was the fact that it was set in Florida. I was born and raised there.
And its descriptions of the swamps and rivers and the ocean, islands, trees, birds, fish, and animals ... it really had me reminiscing!
Florida is a weird place. Weird things happen there. It seems to be completely dissociated from the rest of the country. It's interesting.
And the book really brings it all back. It's kind of an interesting book in general.
I think that's it. Thank you!