“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens (post 4): Sales of this novel continue to amaze

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/21/books/where-the-crawdads-sing-delia-owens.html

People love this book, but do they understand it?

from June 9, 2019

“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens (post 3): Explaining some puzzling things, including why the poetry manuscripts were hidden

Kya, the Marsh Girl

One of the most puzzling things about Kya had been why she stayed, and continued to live, in the shack in the marsh, even after her four siblings and her mother had set repeated examples of how to deal with an untenable situation: leave.

Evidently, in order to deal with each of these abandonments, culminating in the abandonment by her mother, Kya had developed an alternate personality whose specialty was to cope with that situation. Thus, her regular, host personality, Kya, was not her original, “real person” personality, but was herself an alternate personality, whose specialty was to live in the marsh and cope with abandonment.

In fact, the regular, host personality of most people with multiple personality is not their original personality. Indeed, the original personality may be a relatively minor part of the person (the person is all the personalities taken as a whole).

Engaging and Entangling

How did this “marsh girl,” this “marsh trash,” who was living this bizarre, impoverished lifestyle, and who really did not have the grooming and clothing to appear normal and conventionally attractive, nevertheless attract Tate (who taught her to read, and who eventually, in effect, married her) and Chase, the local football hero, who routinely attracted and dated all the normal girls?

Indeed, why did Chase continue to wear the shell necklace, a gift from Kya, even after he married someone else? He continued to wear it in full view of his wife, mother, and the rest of the community. Even though he saw Kya as far beneath him, socially, he was infatuated, possibly in love, in spite of everything.

Although Kya was living a seclusive, schizoid lifestyle—to casual observation, she might have even been suspected of having schizophrenia—she was evidently sufficiently emotionally engaging to attract, and remain attractive, to these two men, and also to Jumpin’ and Mabel.

Although some persons with multiple personality may, at times, superficially look psychotic (e.g., they may hear voices and act peculiarly), they may also be, unlike people with true psychosis, quite emotionally engaging, even emotionally entangling, as both Tate and Chase found Kya.

Hidden Manuscripts

The incriminating shell necklace was eventually discovered in a secret compartment under the floor of Kya’s shack.

But why were the Amanda Hamilton poetry manuscripts hidden there, too?

Because these things were being hidden from Kya, by the alternate personalities who wrote the poems and committed the murder.

1. Delia Owens. Where the Crawdads Sing. New York, Putnam Penguin, 2018.