The author of 'Where the Crawdads Sing', which is going to theaters with an adaptation produced by Reese Witherspoon, has faced scrutiny for her activities in the 1990s. Credit is given toAlberto E Rodriguez.
It had all the makings of a good story. A first-time novelist, making her fiction debut at age 70, wrote a coming-of-age thriller that unexpectedly became a best-selling phenomenon, was selected by Reese Witherspoon for her book club, and was snapped up to be made into a movie. After the publication of Where the Crawdads Sing, appetite grew for the story of Kya, a girl who was abandoned by her family and found herself accused of a murder as a young woman. The movie will premiere on July 15th. The book is a love letter to growing up in the South, according to the author.
Owens has an ugly history that has shadowed her life in the literary spotlight. Owens' past includes an unsolved murder and subsequent scrutiny, just like Kya's present, as was documented in Jeffrey Goldberg's nearly 20,000-word exposé for the New Yorker in 2010.
Owens and her husband, Mark Owens, were the focus of a special on ABC in 1996. Tensions between the couple and the Poachers were captured in the special. A person was shot and killed in the show. Goldberg was told by the cameraman that he thought Owens was responsible for the murder. The stepson of the author was not present when the man was shot. A representative for the author did not respond to a request for comment, and a representative for Sony, the film's distributor, canceled scheduled interviews with Owens, Reese, and Daisy after an interview with screenwriter Lucy Alibar in which TIME asked about Owens and the controversy. Alibar said she didn't know anything about it.
Both Miller and Goldberg compared the author's story to that of the book in their articles. Miller wrote that the case of the woman accused of murder was similar to the case of the woman who became the subject of a lengthy expose in a magazine.
Goldberg spoke to the director of public prosecutions in Zambia, who said that the Owens are still wanted for questioning. There is no statute of limitations on murder in the country. All of them are wanted for questioning.
Owens has a hit novel and controversy surrounding Where the Crawdads Sing.
Owens is a big fan of nature and wildlife. She received her PhD in animal behavior from the University of California, Davis. She and Mark Owens wrote Cry of the Kalahari in 1984. The couple lived in the desert for seven years to study lions and brown hyenas. The Owenses were applauded for their reflections on what it was like to live among animals in isolation after the book won the John Burroughs medal for best natural history book.
Secrets of the Savanna was published in 2006 and The Eye of the Elephant was published in 1992. As a result of their time abroad, the couple became involved in anti-poaching work. After returning to the U.S. in 1996, the couple turned their attention to domestic bears.
The Owens foundation's newsletter stated that Delia Owens would be stepping back from the organization.
Where the Crawdads Sing was published in the summer of 2018? The runaway hit the novel would become, aided by its selection as the September 2018 Reese's Book Club pick, was not anticipated by the publisher.
The New York Times reported that by the end of the year, the novel had sold more print copies than any other adult title. The novelfied the new laws of gravity, according to the president of the Codex Group.
Where the Crawdads Sing sold more than one million copies in its first year. Four years after it was released, the number has surpassed 12 million. Its strength has not waned. The New York Public Library has a list of the top 10 checkouts of the year. The popularity of TikTok's #BookTok content is driving a new audience to the novel. The book has been on the New York Times best seller list for more than a year.
Laura Miller revisits the controversial aspects of Owens' past for Slate in a story that went viral in 2019. Miller gave a detailed look at Owens and her former husband's activities in Africa, where they worked for a number of years. Miller wrote that most of Crawdads fans don't know that Mark and Delia Owens have been told not to return to one of the African nations where they used to work because they are wanted for questioning in a murder that took place. Miller wrote that the American Embassy warned the Owenses not to enter the country until the controversy was over.
The tragedy happened in 1995 and was captured by an ABC film crew that was following the Owenses for a documentary. The film became a special on Turning Point. An unidentified man is shot at by a person whose face is obscured in the special. His body is still after more shots are fired.
The police investigated after the special aired. The body was not located. Christopher Owens was said to be the one who fired the gun. Christopher wasn't present at the scene, according to the woman. Owens told Goldberg that people said Chris did this because they got confused.
The Owenses have not been charged with a crime. Goldberg wrote in his most recent Atlantic piece that he spoke to police officials in Zambia who wanted to question Mark and Christopher Owens, but also wanted to question Delia Owens as a possible witness, co-conspirator, and accessory to felonies.
Miller drew a parallel between Owens depiction of Black characters in Crawdads and the scene in which Jumpin', one of the few characters who shows kindness, wants to notify the police after he sees that she has been attacked. Miller wrote that the idea that any black man living in the rural South during the early 1960s would seriously consider reporting a rape attempt by the son of a prominent white family is ludicrous.
Owens doesn't discuss the murder with the press. She told the New York Times that she didn't participate in the shooting. She said it was painful to have that come up, but it was what she had to deal with.
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When Taylor Swift wrote a song for the film called "Carolina", the creative team behind the Crawdads movie didn't acknowledge the controversy. The singer said in her post that she wanted to create something haunting and ethereal to match the book.
Several social media users began to reflect on the artist's history of white feminism, with one user creating a viral TikTok video that started a larger conversation about Swift and the film.
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Critics are addressing the controversy as the film is about to be released. Even though Owens is well-known before the novel, she has built an even more successful career despite her past reappearance. It is worth considering what one has to ignore in order to get there. David Ehrlich wrote that "we may never know the full truth behind the checkered past of Delia Owens, which seems to include a militant, white savior-minded approach to policing Zambian wildlife preserves, and may also extend to being a 'co.'" It would be easier to separate the film from its source if it were a full-blooded artistic expression.
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