Where the Crawdads Sing

Kya's story begins when she lives in a shack with her poor family in a North Carolina marsh in 1953. As their abusive alcoholic father gambles their money away, and Kya's mother and older siblings flee one by one, leaving Kya alone with him until he too abandons her at the age of seven. She survives by selling mussels at Barkley Cove's general store, owned by Mabel and "Jumpin" Madison, who become Kya's good friends. The townspeople know her as the "Marsh Girl".