If you’ve read 2012 Pulitzer Fiction Jury member Michael Cunningham’s recent New Yorker pieces on what really happened behind-the-scenes in the year-without-a-fiction winner debacle, you may have gotten a tiny teaser for the July 24th Books on Tap selection, “Swamplandia!” Set against the backdrop of the family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades, thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree sets out on a mission to save them all from the chaos that threatens to overwhelm them after their mom (and headliner), gator wrestler Hilolah Bigtree succumbs to cancer.
Praised by critics, prize jury members and readers, “Swamplandia!” is filled with swoon-worthy sentences, eccentric characters, and a rivetingly imaginative story. Just in the first few pages, you know you are in the hands of an artist, “Nights in the swamp were dark and star-lepered … dozens of alligators pushed their icicle overbites and the awesome diamonds of their heads through the three hundred thousand gallons of filtered water … Like black silk, the water bunched and wrinkled …” Get your hands on a copy and join us over a beer at The Tap Room.