A triumphant debut novel and follow-up to Karen Russell’s universally acclaimed short story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.

The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline— think Buddenbrooks set in the Florida Everglades—and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as the World of Darkness. Ava, a resourceful but terrified twelve, must manage seventy gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief. Her mother, Swamp landia!’s legendary headliner, has just died; her sister is having an affair with a ghost called the Dredgeman; her brother has secretly defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their sinking family afloat; and her father, Chief Bigtree, is AWOL. To save her family, Ava must journey on her own to a perilous part of the swamp called the Underworld, a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine.

Selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, Karen Russell is an irrepressible new voice in contemporary fiction.

凯伦•罗舒

Karen Russell

1981年7月生于佛罗里达迈阿密。2006年获哥伦比亚大学艺术硕士学位。

罗舒在少女时期就开始尝试写作，早年的短篇小说多次刊载在《格兰塔》、《纽约客》等文学杂志上。2006年，25岁的罗舒出版了第一部小说集《狼女之家》（St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves），被誉为“美国新生代的早慧天才”。同年，她开始构思第一本长篇小说《鳄鱼女孩》。

罗舒偏好暗黑题材。儿时的她在读《爱丽丝梦游仙境》之前，便读完了《基督山伯爵》。在创作中，她受到斯蒂芬•金、乔治•桑德斯、卡森•麦卡勒斯的影响，就连斯蒂芬•金都认为她的作品“让人毛骨悚然”。

家乡佛罗里达丰富的海岸线及沼泽地貌，也给了生长于此的罗舒无穷的灵感。她的小说多以这片奇特的土地为背景，描写成长的疼痛与渴盼。

《鳄鱼女孩》出版后，立即引起了电视制片人的兴趣，美国时代华纳旗下的HBO电视网于2011年年底宣布要根据本书创作一部电视剧。2013年2月，罗舒出版了第二本短篇小说集《柠檬园里的吸血鬼》（Vampires in the Lemon Grove）。