A Brilliant, Quirky, Nightmarish Novel and the Prize that Eluded It

By Sarah Jane Abbott    |   Friday, January 23, 2015 - Off the Shelf In 2012, the Pulitzer Prize fiction jury read over three hundred novels and short story collections and ultimately submitted three finalists to the Pulitzer board, who were to select a winner. Out of The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, and Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, the prize went to . . . no one. The board’s deliberations are private, so no one will ever know why they decided, instead of choosing the best of three works, to choose none of the above. Of course, many people were shocked and disappointed—myself included. I had read Swamplandia! that year and thought it was an absolute masterpiece and had been anxiously awaiting the announcement of the prize winner. Swamplandia! was Russell’s debut novel, published when she was just thirty years old. It is a brilliantly quirky and nightmarish literary novel about coming of age and dealing with profound loss. Swamplandia! tells the story of the Bigtree clan, a family of alligator wrestlers running a theme park in the Ten Thousand Islands region of Florida. Their park, Swamplandia!, is in serious trouble: Hilola Bigtree, the family’s matriarch and the park’s headliner, has died of cancer, grandfather Sawtooth Bigtree has been diagnosed with dementia and moved to a senior living facility, the park is in massive debt, and a competing park called the World of Darkness has opened on the mainland and is taking the tourists away. The remaining Bigtrees—father the Chief and children Kiwi, Osceola, and Ava—are devastated and struggling to deal with these losses and save the park. All of the children, as well as the Chief, have grown up on the small, swampy island that houses the park, so allowing Swamplandia! to close would mean not only losing their income, but also losing their unique heritage, their home, and the only way of life they have ever known. More