The Marsh Queen

(Hardback, Large Print Edition)

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For fans of Where the Crawdads Sing, this powerful debut novel, set amid the lush landscape of the Florida wetlands, delves into past crimes, old memories, and the eloquent, limitless expanse of parental love.

Loni Mae Murrow's life as a bird artist at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, is tidy, if a trifle constrained--until she's abruptly summoned back home to the wetlands of northern Florida, where she grew up. Her mother, critical and difficult, has grown frail and been resentfully consigned to assisted living, and her younger brother, Phil, juggling a job, a wife, and two young children, needs her help. Loni may not be her mother's only child, but there are some things only a daughter can do.

Going through her mother's things when she returns, Loni finds a cryptic note from a woman whose name she doesn't recognize: "There are some things I have to tell you about Boyd's death," it reads. Boyd is her father, a man who drowned in a boating accident out on the marsh when Loni was twelve and Phil just a baby. The circumstances of his death, long presumed a suicide, turn out to be murkier than anyone thought.

Against her better judgment, she finds herself drawn into a dangerous quest to discover the truth about how he died, struggling all the while to reconnect with her mother through the remnants of their past and to reconcile with her brother and his pushy, provincial wife. At last moved to avenge the wrongs done to her family, Loni has to decide whether to join the violence or end it.

Reviews

"Part romance, part mystery, The Marsh Queen unwinds its entangled story lines with measured grace. Virginia Hartman shares with her bird artist narrator a keen eye and a precise touch, as well as a wry understanding of the way the natural world comforts and sustains. This is a marvelous debut, witty and wise."
--Alice McDermott, National Book Award-winning author of The Ninth Hour
"Loni Murrow, the protagonist in Virginia Hartman's harrowing urban-rural novel, knows that it's not that you can't go home again, but what wretched truths might await you there. In The Marsh Queen there are stories within stories, there are stunning family secrets, there's an almost gothic sance atmosphere--all of that is beautifully orchestrated. But at heart this novel is a kind of mythic journey; let's call it The Daughter's Search for Truth, Love and Redemption."
--Howard Norman, author of Next Life Might Be Kinder
"Steeped in the lush rhythms and murky shadows of the Florida Wetlands, Virginia Hartman's The Marsh Queen is at once a gripping mystery, a devastating family drama, a romance, and a tribute to the natural world. Loni Murrow is a character who will stay with me for a long time. An astonishing debut."
--Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept
The Marsh Queen finds a compelling Southern-noir niche all its own and marks Virginia Hartman as a writer to watch."
--Louis Bayard, author of Courting Mr. Lincoln, Lucky Strikes, and The Pale Blue Eye
"Subtle and complex, The Marsh Queen navigates the currents and backwaters of family relationships, the Florida swamplands, and a mysterious death that occurred twenty-five years before. Like Barbara Kingsolver, Hartman delves deep into the natural world to explore her characters, and in this case, the connections between one haunted woman and the waters that took her father's life. A wonderful and absorbing read."
--Suzanne Feldman, author of Sisters of the Great War
"The setting is distinctive, Loni is like a girl-detective grown up, and it crackles with trouble and action."
--Ellen Prentiss Campbell, author of Frieda's Song

Author Bio

Virginia Hartman has an MFA in creative writing from American University and is on the faculty at George Washington University. Her stories have been shortlisted for the New Letters Awards and the Dana Awards. The Marsh Queen is her first novel. Find out more at VirginiaHartman.com.