-INTERVIEW: Karen Russell talks about her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her first novel, Swamplandia!. (BookBrowse)

For better or for worse, when I sit down to write I feel gravitationally pulled towards characters who are children and adolescents. I was joking with a friend that I can decide to write a story about the rabbits of the apocalypse, and it will undoubtedly being, "The world was ending. The bunny was fourteen-years old (in bunny years)."

I love the double optic that children possess - the way they can develop kid-theodicies and fantastic explanations, but also shift gears and have a nascent adult sense of the world, a more "realistic" vision.

I've had Swamplandia on a shelf somewhere since it first won Karen Russell rave reviews, but I'd never actually gotten around to reading any of her work until Louise Erdich chose her story, ">Haunting Olivia to read on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. It's astonishing.

Two brothers have found "magical" goggles--girl's pink swim goggles with a snorkel--which they use to explore a local marina. They are ostensibly seeking treasure, but as we learn they are actually seeking the lost soul of their little sister, who drowned when they were supposed to be watching her.

Their parents have dealt with the tragedy by traveling to the Third World to try and save other children. Our narrator, Timothy, seems to deal with it by ignoring it. His older brother, Wallow, initially seems rather brutish--their father even jokes that he looks as if the mother had borne the child of a Minotaur--but is in reality the one driving their search.

[SPOILER ALERT] I wasn't really sure where she was headed with all this, until the final scene in the story which summons the spirit and message of Gerard Manley Hopkins:

To enter the grotto, you have to slide in on your back, like a letter through a mail slot.

Something scrapes my coccyx bone on the way in. There’s a polar chill in the water tonight. No outside light can wiggle its way inside.

But, sure enough, phosphorescent dots spangle the domed roof of the grotto. It’s like a radiant checkerboard of shit. You can’t impose any mental pictures on it—it’s too uniform. It defies the mind’s desire to constellate randomness. The Glowworm Grotto is nothing like the night sky. The stars here are all equally bright and evenly spaced, like a better-ordered cosmos.

“Olivia?”

The grotto smells like salt and blood and bat shit. Shadows web the walls. I try and fail to touch the bottom.

“Oliviaaa?”

Her name echoes around the cave. After a while, there is only rippled water again, and the gonged absence of sound. Ten more minutes, I think. I could splash around here for ten more minutes and be done with this. I could take off the goggles, even. I could leave without ever looking below the surface of the water, and Wallow would never know.

“Oli—”

I take a deep breath, and dive.

Below me, tiny fish are rising out of golden cylinders of coral. It looks like an undersea calliope, piping a song that you can see instead of hear. One of the fish swims right up and taps against my scratchproof lenses. It’s just a regular blue fish, solid and alive. It taps and taps, oblivious of the thick glass. My eyes cross, trying to keep it in focus.

The fish swims off to the beat of some subaqueous music. Everything down here is dancing—the worms’ green light and the undulant walls and the leopard-spotted polyps. Everything. And following this fish is like trying to work backward from the dance to the song. I can’t hear it, though; I can’t remember a single note of it. It fills me with a hitching sort of sadness.

I trail the fish at an embarrassed distance, feeling warm-blooded and ridiculous in my rubbery flippers, marooned in this clumsy body. Like I’m an impostor, an imperfect monster.

I look for my sister, but it’s hopeless. The goggles are all fogged up. Every fish burns lantern-bright, and I can’t tell the living from the dead. It’s all just blurry light, light smeared like some celestial fingerprint all over the rocks and the reef and the sunken garbage. Olivia could be everywhere.

Not only does the colorful wildlife imagery recall Hopkins (see review) but so to does the implication that God is visible everywhere in Creation--that celestial fingerprint--and so it is quite right that Olivia is everywhere. They will be forever "haunted" by her eternal presence.

(Reviewed:04-Dec-24)

Grade: (A+) Orrin C. Judd

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Karen Russell Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Karen Russell
    -AUTHOR SITE: KarenRussell.com
    -PUBLISHER PAGE: Karen Russell (Penguin Random House)
    -ENTRY: Karen Russell (MacArthur Foundation)
    -ENTRY: Karen Russell: 5 under 35 (National Book Foundation)
    -ENTRY: Karen Russell (Internet Speculative Fiction Database)
    -ENTRY: Karen Russell (Book Reporter)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (Medium)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (Internet Archive)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (Granta)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (The Kenyon Review)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (NY Review of Books)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (Esquire)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (Conjunctions)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (Electric Lit)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (LitHub)
    -INDEX: Karen Russell (The New Yorker)
    -REVIEW INDEX: Karen Russell (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW INDEX: Karen Russell (Publishers Weekly)
    -AUDIO STORY: Louise Erdrich joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Haunting Olivia,” by Karen Russell (New Yorker Fiction Podcast)
    -STORY: Haunting Olivia (Karen Russell, 6/13/05, The New Yorker)
    -STORY: Haunting Olivia [pdf]
    -STORY: St. Lucy's Home for Girl;s Raised by Wolves (Karen Russell, Granta)[pdf]
    -
    -ESSAY: Can Video Games Help Stroke Victims? (Karen Russell, Nov. 15th, 2015, The New Yorker)
    -
    -PODCAST: Poured Over: Karen Russell on The Antidote (Jenna Seery / March 13, 2025, B&N Reads)
    -VIDEO: Great Writers, Great Readings: Karen Russell (Hofstra University, 10/20/15)
    -ESSAY: Karen Russell: A Brutally Honest Accounting of Writing, Money, and Motherhood: The novelist didn’t realize how fervently society wants to turn us into calculators — every action has a payment or a fee — until she had her first child. Here she reckons with motherhood’s ticking meter: every minute with her kids is work lost, and each minute writing subtracts from precious, un-price-able joy. (Karen Russell, December 17, 2020, Wealth Simple)
    -ESSAY: The Secret Author of Our Dreams: Modern horror, fantasy, and science fiction all emerge from the long shadow of the German polymath E.T.A. Hoffmann. (Karen Russell, July 22, 2023, NY Review of Books)
    -ESSAY: What If Things Get Better?: As the predictions of climate scientists become reality, imagining a better future can feel impossible. But hope might be right beneath our feet. (Karen Russell, Oct 19, 2023, Esquire)
    -STORY: Sleep Donation: In this work of fiction, a lethal epidemic of insomnia has swept the nation. Slumber Corps' top recruiter can get any dreamer to donate to an insomniac in need, but her faith in the mission is faltering. (Karen Russell, Sep 24, 2020, Esquire)
    -STORY: The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis: A story about childhood and acceptance by Karen Russell, recommended by Bradford Morrow: Introduction by Bradford Morrow (Karen Russell, Electric Lit)
    -STORY: ZZ's Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers (Karen Russell, Conjunctions)
    -VIDEO: Author Karen Russell: Karen Russell reads the short story from Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration (Aquinas' Contemporary Writer's Series, 3/08/09)
    -AUDIO STORY: Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove: The author of Swamplandia! and St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves reads from her work (Bard College, April 8, 2013)
    -STORY: St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Karen Russell, Granta)
    -
    -ESSAY: Looking For Home: Karen Russell on America’s Housing Catastrophe: This Country's Greatest Natural Disaster is Manmade (Karen Russell, 3/23/17, LitHub)
    -PODCAST: Karen Russell on Fatal Insomnia and the Demons of Our Dreams: From the Bookable Podcast with Author Amanda Stern (Bookable, November 6, 2020)
    -ESSAY: Pep Talk: on Letting Go (Karen Russell, November 12, 2012, NaNoWriMo)
    -AUDIO STORY: Karen Russell Reads “The Ghost Birds” (New Yorker Writers’ Voice Podcast, 5 October 2021)
    -STORY: The Barn at The End of Our Term (Karen Russell, 4/16/07, Granta)
    -AUDIO STORY: “THE GRAVELESS DOLL OF ERIC MUTIS” by Karen Russell (Short Creepy Fiction!) (Weird Darkness, 10 May 2024)
    -PODCAST: Karen Russell on What the Magic Offers: In Conversation with Mitzi Rapkin on the First Draft Podcast (First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing , March 31, 2025(
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    -
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell on What Natural Disasters Can Reveal About the Human Condition: Jane Ciabattari Talks to the Author of “The Antidote” (Jane Ciabattari, March 12, 2025, LitHub)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell Received an Ice Bucket as a Courtship Gift, and Other Literary Tidbits: The Author of "The Antidote" Takes the Lit Hub Questionnaire (Literary Hub, March 11, 2025)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Karen Russell discusses her new book 'The Antidote', set during the Dust Bowl (Scott Simon, 3/08/25, NPR: Weekend Edition)
    -PODCAST: Karen Rusell (BSS #379) (The Bat Segundo Show, February 4, 2011)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell talks about her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her first novel, Swamplandia!. (BookBrowse)
    -INTERVIEW: “Regular life is so intensely weird:” A Craft Conversation with Karen Russell (Erin Weeks, May 16, 2024, Chicago Review of Books)
    -INTERVIEW: To Hell and Back: The author of St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves discusses her hotly anticipated new novel and how Ice Cube inspires her work. (Karen Russell, Nov 13, 2007, Esquire)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Karen Russell, Telling Fantastic Tales (NPR: Weekend Edition Sunday, September 3, 2006)
    -INTERVIEW: inviting a haunting: A Conversation with Karen Russell on Amphibious Child Narrators, the Collision of Myths, and Omnivorous Readers (Rowen Erickson, Charlotte Lucas, Noah Ma, and Emily Pickering, April 10, 2024, Interlochen Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell On Home, Monsters, and Magical Realism (Bradley Sides, July 22, 2019, Chicago Book Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell has recommended reading for you, Joe Biden (Book Marks, October 7, 2020)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell | Interview (Karen Russell & Patrick Ryan, Granta)
    -VIDEO: video from the Chicago Humanities Festival: Karen Russell speaks with Time Out Chicago's Laura Pearson about her process
    -INTERVIEW: A Conversation with Karen Russell (Luke Wortley, Booth)
    -INTERVIEW: Interview with Karen Russell, Endowed Chair (Texas State: MFA in Creative Writing)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell (Glimmertrain)
    -INTERVIEW: Rapid-Fire Book Recs from Author Karen Russell on Literary Hub (NW Book Lovers, November 24, 2020)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell: By the Book (Feb. 14, 2013, NY Times Book Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Interview: Karen Russell (The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, May 2013, Lightspeed)
    -PODCAST: Ep. #336 - Interview with Karen Russell (Professional Book Nerds, 13 May 2019)
    -PODCAST: First Draft - Karen Russell (Mitzi Rapkin, 5 August 2019, First Draft)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell: How I Write (Noah Charney, Feb. 06, 2013, Daily Beast)
    -INTERVIEW: A Very Precarious Moment: Talking with Karen Russell (Frances Yackel, July 15, 2019, The Rumpus)
    -INTERVIEW: Meet Karen Russell (Canvas Rebel, November 30, 2023)
    -INTERVIEW: An Interview with Karen Russell (Jess Pane, Fall 2017, Washington Square Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell Is Resisting Despair: The novelist talks to Esquire about taking her talents to the stage with The Night Falls, a new show about Florida tourist traps, Siren songs, and grappling with depression. (Adrienne Westenfeld, Feb 10, 2023, Esquire)
    -INTERVIEW: Seven questions with novelist Karen Russell: The 'Swamplandia!' author opens up about her editing process and shares tips for discovering your writing voice. (Interlochen Center for the Arts, April 8, 2024)
    -INTERVIEW: The Millions Interview: Karen Russell (Brian Gresko, April 7, 2011, The Millions)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell (Fiction Addiction)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell Donates Her Sleep (Vincent Scarpa, April 8, 2014, American Short Fiction)
    -INTERVIEW: Author Karen Russell on vampires, addiction and literary tattoos (Nathan Rostron, 3/15/13, Bookish)
    -PODCAST: Karen Russell : Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Tin House, Between the Covers Podcast)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell: Coming of age in the Everglades (Interview by Alden Mudge, February 2011, BookPage)
    -INTERVIEW: The Nature of Karen Russell (Christopher Bollen, February 26, 2013, Interview)
    -INTERVIEW: 'Orange World' Offers Dark Visions Of Man, Nature, And The Devil Beside Us: Author Karen Russell talks about the appeal of short stories, our fascination with frontiers, and the fine line between literature and a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch (Kristin Iversen, May 14, 2019, NylonI)
    -INTERVIEW: A Brief Interview With Karen Russell: Karen Russell Shares The First Book She Ever Loved (Maddie Crum, Mar 25, 2014, Huffington Post)
    -INTERVIEW: Q&A: Pulitzer-Nominated Writer Karen Russell: The author of Swamplandia! talks about her new book about lemon-juice sucking vampires. (Genevieve Hudson, April 1, 2013, Portland Monthly)
    -INTERVIEW: The Creative World of Karen Russell: The Bryn Mawr teacher is the author of Swamplandia! inspired by her native Florida (Rebecca Shaw, 11/13/11, English House Gazette)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell talks about her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her first novel, Swamplandia!. (BookBrowse)

For better or for worse, when I sit down to write I feel gravitationally pulled towards characters who are children and adolescents. I was joking with a friend that I can decide to write a story about the rabbits of the apocalypse, and it will undoubtedly being, "The world was ending. The bunny was fourteen-years old (in bunny years)."

I love the double optic that children possess - the way they can develop kid-theodicies and fantastic explanations, but also shift gears and have a nascent adult sense of the world, a more "realistic" vision.

    -PODCAST: ‘Trying To Be Honest About All Of It’ – A Conversation With Karen Russell (Jake Brownell, Feb. 5, 2019, Converge Lecture Series Podcast)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell’s New Story Collection Is a Wondrous, Wild Imagining: The Portland-based author of Swamplandia returns with Orange World. (Fiona McCann, April 23, 2019, Portland Monthly)
    -INTERVIEW: A Mixtape of Ghosts: Karen Russell in Conversation with Kevin Brockmeier (Porter House Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell: How Florida influences her fiction (Kevin Nance, Feb. 6th, 2014, Chicago Tribune)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell (Jordan Kisner, 6/05/13, Full Stop)
    -PROFILE: Karen Russell Wants to Understand the Monsters Around Us: The acclaimed author of Orange World talks climate change, monsters, and the book that left her lying on the floor. (Adrienne Westenfeld, May 14, 2019, Esquire)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell on Life, Death, and Bringing Swamplandia! to HBO: "I Want Cate Blanchett to Play All the Characters" (Michael E. Miller, November 22, 2013, Miami New Times)
    -INTERVIEW: The Most Monstrous Version of Yourself: The Millions Interviews Karen Russell (The Millions Interview, Zack Ruskin February 14, 2013, The Millions)
    -INTERVIEW: Karen Russell Wishes Her Dystopian Novella Didn't Feel So Close To Reality: "Rereading this story by the emergency lighting of 2020, I can see that so many of the fears that inspired [Sleep Donation] have become facts." (Arianna Rebolini, 9/30/20, BuzzFeed)
    -PODCAST: Karen Russell: Lit Cast Live Episode 105 (LitCast, 29 May 2019)
    -INTERVIEW: inviting a haunting: A Conversation with Karen Russell on Amphibious Child Narrators, the Collision of Myths, and Omnivorous Readers (The Interlochen Review)
    -INTERVIEW: Ask Karen Russell (Good Reads, September 12-16, 2011)
    -
    -
    -READING GROUP GUIDE: Karen Russell
    -ESSAY: Author of the week: Karen Russell: Karen Russell could use a rest. (The Week, January 8, 2015)
    -PODCAST: Ep. 128: Reeling for the Empire by Karen Russell - Discussion (Elder Sign, 28 October 2022)
    -ESSAY: 5 Writing Lessons from Karen Russell (Georgina Roy, Writing Tips Oasis)
    -ESSAY: The love of weird in Karen Russell’s short stories (Kate, 10/19/15, Vulpes Libris)
    -ESSAY: The New Uncanny (Joy Williams, Feb. 7th, 2013, NY Times Book Review)
    -PODCAST: Ep. 86: Black Corfu by Karen Russell - Discussion (Elder Sign, 6 August 2021)
    -PODCAST: Karen Russell: Sleep Donation (Bookable, 27 October 2020)
    -ARCHIVES: “karen russell” (THe Guardian)
    -ARCHIVES: “karen russell” (Internet Archives)
    -PODCAST: S3E27 Haunting Olivia by Karen Russell (Prosecco and Prose)
    -ESSAY: Haunting Olivia (Short Story Magic Tricks)
    -ESSAY: Summary Of Karen Russell's Haunting Olivia (Internet Public Library)
    -ESSAY: Birthday review: Stories of Karen Russell (Strange at Ecbatan, , July 9, 2019)
    -STUDY GUIDE: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Super Summary)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Haunting Olivia, a hunt for the missing sister ( Literary Theory and Criticism (ENG 328), Lovely Professional University)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Haunting Olivia By Karen Russell: A Literary Analysis (Major Tests)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Haunting Olivia (Cram)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Haunting Olivia (SVASTI JAGANNADHAN, Sutori)
    -REVIEW: of Haunting Olivia by Karen Russell (Morgan Love, Literary Arts Blogspace: Mississippi School of the Arts)
    -REVIEW: of Haunting Olivia (EarthGoat)
    -REVIEW: of Haunting Olivia (Cold Tea Book Reviews)
    -REVIEW: of Haunting Olivia (Sky: a booknatic)
    -REVIEW: of Haunting Olivia (Bill Chance, This is Not Going to Turn Out Well)
    -REVIEW: of Haunting Olivia (Magic & Writing)
    -REVIEW: of Haunting Olivia (Daily Story Reviews)
    -REVIEW: of “The Dredgeman’s Revelation” Karen Russell (Buried in Print)
    -REVIEW: of Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (Maureen Corrigan, NPR)
    -REVIEW: of Vampires in the Lemon Grove (William Boyle, LA Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Jess Holland, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Vampires in the Lemon Grove (M John Harrison, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Reading the Short Story
    -REVIEW: of Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Joy Williams, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Swamplandia by Karen Russell (Emma Donoghue, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Swamplandia (Killian Fox, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW:: of Swamplandia (Scarlett Thomas, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World by Karen Russell (Erin Bartnett, Electric Lit)
    -REVIEW: of Orange Worlds (Joseph Peschel, Brooklyn Rail)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Ellen Umansky, Columbia Magazine)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Daisy Johnson, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Leslie Lindsay|Always with a Book)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Michael Schaub, NPR)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Claire Kim, LA Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Ryan Smernoff, LA Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Bathanne Patrick, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Emily St. John Mandel, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Tyler Grant, Washington Examiner)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Dwight Garner, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Ryan Smernoff, LA Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Constance Grady, Vox)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Jake Kline, the Atlantic)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (Mary Slosson, The Oregonian/OregonLive)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (London Magazine)
    -REVIEW: of Orange World (While Reading and Walking)
    -REVIEW: of Sleep Donation by Karen Russell (Shane Joaquin Jimenez, LA Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Sleep Deprivation (sam Jordison, The Guardian)
    -STORY REVIEW: of Black Corfu by Karen Russell (Workshop Heretic)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote by Karen Russell (Sandra Newman, The Guardian))
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Malavika PraseedChicago Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Maureen Corrigan, NPR: Fresh Air)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (BookMarks)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Lauren LeBlanc, LA Times)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Ron Charles, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Victor LaValle, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Chris Hewitt, Star Tribune)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Laura Miller, Slate)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Malavinja Praseed, Chicago Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Donna Seaman, BookList)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote (Saige Jackson, Southern Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of The Antidote ()
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