Swamplandia

Swamplandia! is a 2011 novel by the American author Karen Russell. It is an adaptation of her short story “Ava Wrestles the Alligator,” first published in the Summer 2006 issue of the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story and later collected in her 2006 book of short stories, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. It was longlisted for the Orange Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

A Miami native, Russell uses magical realism and elements of the supernatural to examine various environmental and socio-cultural issues that are distinctly Floridian. In addition to her debut collection and Swamplandia!, Russell has also published two other collections: Vampires in the Lemon Grove (2013) and Orange World and Other Stories (2019).

Set in the Ten Thousand Islands, a chain of islets and mangrove swamps on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Swamplandia! tells the story of the Bigtree family, owners and operators of an alligator-themed amusement park that is under threat from both environmental and human-generated menaces. Through the eyes of its 13-year-old narrator Ava, Swamplandia! examines the impact of grief and loss on the family, the coming-of-age experience of each of its three adolescents, and environmental destruction in coastal regions of Florida.

This guide refers to the 2011 paperback edition by Vintage Contemporaries.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide depict and discuss the sexual assault of a minor. The source text contains outdated terminology for Indigenous Americans.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with the immediate aftermath of the death of Hilola Bigtree, narrator Ava’s mother. Hilola had been the star headliner of Swamplandia!’s main attraction and a loving presence in the lives of her children. In the wake of her death, siblings Ava, Kiwi, and Osceola struggle with feelings of grief and loss and their father (The Chief) struggles to keep the family business afloat. The one-time patriarch of the family, The Chief’s father Sawtooth, has been moved to a mainland care facility as the result of slowly progressing dementia. In the absence of Hilola, the children’s homeschooling becomes nonexistent, no one manages the household, and the children increasingly find themselves wearing dirty clothing and eating at odd hours. When sister Osceola finds an old book on ghosts and spiritualism in a nearby, abandoned library boat, she begins trying to contact the dead. While her efforts are initially focused on her mother, she quickly moves on to the spirits of dead potential boyfriends, and she becomes (so she thinks) engaged to the ghost of a long-dead dredge boat crew member named Louis. Kiwi, whose keen intellect has not been stifled by a lifetime of sub-par, quasi-homeschooling, longs to move to the mainland and enroll in a real school. Ava hopes to take her mother’s place as the star alligator wrestler of Swamplandia!, and their father begins a campaign of what he calls “Carnival Darwinism,” meant to modernize the park and increase attendance.

Kiwi and The Chief begin to argue over the future of Swamplandia!. Kiwi doubts his father’s ability to save the struggling park and thinks that the family would be best served by selling it and starting over. When he realizes that his father is resolute in his determination to keep the park, Kiwi runs away to the mainland. He finds a job at the World of Darkness, Swamplandia!’s main competitor, enrolls in a GED program, and although he is not convinced that his family’s tourist attraction can be saved, he begins setting aside money for his father. Back at Swamplandia!, Osceola and Ava discover an abandoned dredge boat while clearing a patch of invasive Melaleuca plants, setting off a chain of events that leads to Osceola abandoning Ava to pursue her ghostly lover Louis into the underworld. Park attendance has dwindled to zero, and The Chief, too, leaves Swamplandia!, heading to the mainland to “secure investors” for the park.

Alone on their island, Ava finds herself with an overabundance of time and very little to do. She misses her mother and worries about her father and siblings. When Osceola disappears, Ava befriends a local bird-catcher named the Bird Man and enlists his help locating her sister. She has some idea of where Osceola had been headed, and she and the Bird Man set out in his pole boat for “The Eye of the Needle,” a small channel in between two ancient mounds of Calusa shells that Osceola is sure marks the entrance to the underworld. Although the Bird Man initially seems friendly to Ava, she begins to doubt his intentions when they happen upon a park ranger who, known to Ava’s family, recognizes her and wonders why she would be navigating her way through the mangroves so far from home. The Bird Man tells Ava that if she tells the truth about their journey, she is likely to be taken from him and placed in the care of another family. His fear and anger worry Ava, but she has no choice but to continue along with him: They have come too far to turn back, and he is her only hope of finding Osceola.

Back on the mainland, Kiwi struggles in his new job and in his GED class, but his situation improves when he saves a tourist from drowning. Having become a local hero, he is selected by the World of Darkness to train in their aviation program for a new tourist attraction that requires pilots. During the celebration for his new opportunities, he happens upon his father, working at a casino. Kiwi realizes that his father’s trip to the mainland had never been about securing investors, but rather that he was earning additional income.

Further into the mangroves, the Bird Man sexually assaults Ava, and after thinking that she sees men in the swamp, she is able to escape his clutches. After a difficult, solo journey, Ava manages to reconnect with the park ranger whom she’d encountered earlier while still on the Bird Man’s boat, and she is rescued. Osceola, too, is found, by none other than Kiwi on one of his inaugural flights, and the children are then reunited with their father. With no other option, the family moves to the mainland together and begins a much more normal life.