Swamplandia! (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Ava Bigtree: The protagonist and narrator of this novel, Ava is thirteen years old and the youngest child of the Bigtree alligator-wrestling dynasty. Ava dreams of following in her mother's footsteps and becoming a world-famous alligator wrestler. In the meantime, though, she just wants to help her family in whatever way she can, even as she struggles with the devastating loss of her mother. Like her siblings, Ava is a product of her parents' and grandparents' isolated world and the mythology they built around it. Smart, brave, and independent, Ava nonetheless is operating within the constraints of her insulated upbringing in which reality and her family's fictions have been seamlessly blended.
• The Birdman: Dressed in an enormous coat made of feathers, the enigmatic Birdman wanders the Florida swamps, ridding it of unwanted birds of prey. The birdman offers to serve as a guide to the underworld.
• Hilola Bigtree: Ava's mother and star attraction of Swamplandia, who wrestles the alligators. Hilola dies from cancer in the opening pages of the novel; her death means the end of their livelihood and soon cuts her husband and three children loose from their moorings, setting them on unpredictable paths in which they try to recover, each in their own way, from the terrible emotional and material loss.
• Sawtooth formally known as Ernest Schedrach: Ava's grandfather who was moved to an assisted-living facility one month before Hilola's death.
• Osceola ("Ossie"): Ava's older sister, Osceola becomes obsessed with ghosts after her mother's death, insisting that she is possessed by ghost boyfriends. She loses touch with the painful reality of Swamplandia's rapid decline and her family's breakdown as she embraces the much more appealing world of the dead.
• Kiwi: Ava's older brother, a gawky teen with a deep sense of his own intellect and potential but the frustration of having grown up too isolated to develop either. Kiwi is a quick and avid learner of both information and culture, a righteous kid with a sense of duty, and both introspective and self-critical. He is ultimately heroic.
• Vijay Montañez: Kiwi's new friend, Vijay is a total stoner who introduces Kiwi to slang, swearing, and the ritual behaviors of teen boys.
• Carl Jenks: Kiwi's supervisor at World of Darkness, Carl is a petty, unhappy man who wields his little authority with ill will.
• Louis Thanksgiving: Ossie's ghost boyfriend aka The Dredgeman. As a child, his full name was Louis Thanksgiving Auschenbliss; however, the surname of his adopted parents was discarded when he ran away from home as an adolescent.
• Scott: Payroll manager for World of Darkness.
• Bird Man: Gypsy who travels around Florida parks getting rid of problem birds.
• Viola Arena: Kiwi's GED teacher.
• Dale Bonilla: The World of Darkness employee who orients Kiwi to his new position as a life guard at World of Darkness.
• Whip Jeters: Park ranger for swamps surrounding Swamplandia!
• Emily Barton: An attention-hungry heiress who fakes her own drowning at the World of Darkness theme park where Kiwi works.
• Dennis "Denny" Pelkis: The World of Darkness employee providing Kiwi Certified Flight Instruction.

Quotes edit see section history

• “You know, my father trained himself to be my mother's sun, electrically speaking. That was exactly how my dad described the job of love.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• The Beginning of the End can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it.

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• Faith was a power that arose from inside you, I thought, and doubt was exogenous, a speck in your eye. A black mote from the sad world of adults.

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• The asterisk, the Chief taught us, was the special punctuation that God gave us for neutralizing lies.

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• I didn’t realize that one tragedy can beget another, and another—bright-eyed disasters flooding out of a death hole like bats out of a cave.

  Highlighted by 31 Kindle customers

• Hopes were like these ladies, Mom told us. Hopes were wallflowers. Hopes hugged the perimeter of a dance floor in your brain, tugging at their party lace, all perfume and hems and doomed expectation. They fanned their dance cards, these guests that pressed against the walls of your heart.

  Highlighted by 30 Kindle customers

• If a word is just a container for feeling, or a little matchstick that you strike against yourself—a tiny, fiery summons—then probably I could have said anything, called any name, who knows?

  Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers

• Every rock on the island, every swaying tree branch or dirty dish in our house was like a word in a sentence that I could read about my mother.

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• If you’re short on time, that would be the two-word version of our story: we fell.

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• Madness, as I understood it from books, meant a person who was open to the high white whine of everything.

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• a small black desk that looked so weak that I didn’t even like to rest my eyes on it.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

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• Loomis County Ferry Point: Departure point for the double-decker ferry.
• World of Darkness: Competitor theme park to Swamplandia!
• Stiltville: A collection of ten to twenty abandoned houses mounted on fourteen-foot pilings.

Organizations edit see section history

• Army Corps of Engineers: Add a description of this organization.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• cuddy: a small room, cabin, or enclosed space at the bow or stern of a boat, especially one under the poop.
• Seth: The name of all of Swamplandia's 98 alligators...because it's easier than reprinting all the promotional materials.
• Lost Souls: The visitors to World of Darkness.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• survival: There are many different types of survival in this book. When the family is faced with change, each character faces survival differently.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Followed by Open City.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Karen Russell (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Orange Prize for Fiction (Finalist, 2011, Longlist)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3618.U755S93 2011
• Dewey: 813.6

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history