The True Story That Inspired Where The Crawdads Sing Explained

The Where The Crawdads Sing true story is different from the movie, but its real-life inspiration is too similar to ignore. The 2022 movie adapted Delia Owens’ best-selling 2018 novel of the same name, where protagonist Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is accused of killing her abusive ex-boyfriend, Chase Andrews. While fictional, Where The Crawdads Sing had a connection to Owens’ real life. Kya is a young girl living in the North Carolina who is forced to raise herself from a young age. Although she is completely ostracized by the town, she gains the attention of two men, Tate and Chase.

After Chase dies, Kya is accused of murder, but Where The Crawdads Sing ends with Kya being found not guilty. While Kya wasn’t innocent in reality, it’s hard not to root for her after everything Chase did. Where The Crawdads Sing weaves a complicated story that may be tied to author Delia Owens’ real life. Much like Kya, Owens is an author who took a tragedy and made it into something larger than herself. Though not imperative for viewing of the movie, the true story that seemingly inspired Where The Crawdads Sing does add another layer to the plot.

Is Where The Crawdads Sing Based On A True Story?

Several Real Events From Delia Owen’s Life Inspired Where The Crawdads Sing

The true story behind Where The Crawdads Sing is more of a series of real-life inspirations than a single specific event. There does not appear to be a woman in any public records who, like the character in Where The Crawdads Sing, lived in a marsh by herself and was found not guilty of killing a man — but there are connections to Owens’ past. Before she became an author, Delia Owens and her then-husband, Mark, worked as conservationists in Africa. Delia’s stepson and Mark’s son, Chris, also lived with them in Africa.

Their work focused on saving elephants from poachers in Zambia and, at the time, they were part of an ABC special documentary that followed their conservation efforts. The documentary titled Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story, captured Mark on camera instructing scouts to shoot poachers who came into the national park. This could be part of the Where the Crawdads Sing true story, as the conservation efforts turned a documentary into a true-crime investigation when an alleged poacher was shot and killed after entering a campsite. After the episode aired, the Zambian government opened a still-unresolved homicide investigation.

Subsequent investigations found their son, Chris, had allegedly fired two of the three shots at the presumed poacher, but the entire family denied involvement in the shooting. In fact, Delia claimed that Chris wasn’t actually in the camp at the time, but was mistaken for a camera operator of the same name, Chris Everson.

Everson claims Mark had flown both himself, Chris Owens, and another scout to the site, and Mark left them. Everson alleged that when the poacher arrived, Chris Owens fired a shot. Everson caught on camera the scout firing a second shot, then Owens firing a third. Footage disappeared from the tent one day, only to reappear later.

This complex story may be a long way from the marsh setting of the book and movie, but there are some clear parallels, including a death and a difficult investigation to try and uncover the truth of what happened.

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Where The Crawdads Sing Real-Life Inspiration Explained

The Story Is In Part Drawn From The Moral Debate Around Protecting Wildlife

There are elements of the Where the Crawdads Sing true story that suggest it was inspired by the real-life tragedy. In the book and movie, the audience is meant to side with Kya because of her motivations. Though not the same scenario, suggesting it isn’t related to the real story of Where the Crawdads Sing, a nameless poacher intent on harming animals in a national park being found dead could be seen as justified by some in order to protect the animals. If Chris did theoretically shoot the poacher, he also got away with it. And while Kya’s decisions in Where The Crawdads Sing were not solely (or even primarily) motivated by a desire to protect the marshes, the question of whether the ends justify the means remains the same.

Much like Kya left a note that proved her guilt, Mark also supposedly left a note, chronicled in the documentary, in which he said:

”
Two poachers have been killed and one wounded… we are just getting warmed up.
”

Authors, like Delia Owens, often draw upon personal experiences when they write, so it is also possible that the Where The Crawdads Sing true story is technically based upon the mysterious death of the poacher, whether her family was actually involved or not. When looking at it in this light, Where the Crawdads Sing is a true story then, though not when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of the narrative.

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What Where The Crawdad Sings Got Right: Animal Conservation Can Be Violent

True Story Or Not, The 2022 Movie Was Correct About Its Core Message

Since the controversial Where the Crawdads Sing true story is probably based on this violent animal conservationist incident, it’s worth noting that animal conservation has turned into a bloody business over the years. While it may not be prevalent in the U.S., protections against poachers have evolved into military tactics as the problem has gotten out of hand. According to Smithsonian, former Israeli commando Nir Kalron has been selling his military techniques to conservationists all across Africa to fight against poachers.

Modern poaching is a highly organized criminal enterprise, and animal conservationists have had to get creative to keep their animals safe from harm — unfortunately, that means escalating to military tactics. Poachers killed a whopping 100,000 elephants between 2010 and 2012, and it’s also worth noting that poaching operations are often tied to other criminal enterprises. While military measures may seem extreme on the surface, and to some, it’s strange that Where the Crawdads Sing is based on a true story about a violent incident regarding animal conservation, a deeper look at the events brings it into context.

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What Inspired Delia Owens When Writing The Book Where The Crawdads Sing Is Based On

The Author Drew From Various Life Experiences

While the Where the Crawdads Sing true story is different from the novel and the film, writer Delia Owens used this story coupled with her life experiences to come up with Kya’s haunting tale. In an interview with BookBrowse, Owens opened up about the creation of Where the Crawdads Sing and what elements were drawn from her personal life.

A surprising amount of the story, setting, themes, and characters have all been dictated by Owens’ personal experiences with everything from the North Carolina marsh (which is a character in its own right) to Kya’s flaws from living in isolation finding a root in Owens’ encounters.

When asked why a coastal marsh was chosen for the setting, Owens explained the importance of nature within the overall story as it basically became Kya’s parent after her mother died, and she remarks that there truly is no greater teacher than nature itself. However, in terms of the setting, Owens stated that she chose the marsh because she’s familiar with it:

”
I chose the coastal marsh because I was somewhat familiar with it and knew other marshes and swamps of the southern states very well. When I was girl, I went canoe camping with my mother in the Okefenokee Swamp and other wild places.”

Owens’ time as a researcher in remote areas in Africa also informed Kya’s character experiences as she grew up in isolation. In this way, the Where the Crawdads Sing true story holds up a mirror to Owens’ encounters. Owens states that much of her adult life was spent in complete isolation, between living in the Kalahari Desert for seven years and having her own camp in Luangwa:

“I know what it is like to be alone. […] I know how isolation can make you feel insecure and inadequate. What it is like to avoid people when you go to town because you don’t belong.”

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Some Elements Of The Where The Crawdads Sing Story Caused Controversy

The True Story And Author Have Drawn Criticism

Like the Where the Crawdads Sing true story itself, there are a fair few controversies surrounding the book/movie and the author herself. The incident featured in Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story brought nothing but problems for the family, and it didn’t help that Owens included a main character who was guilty of murder but subsequently acquitted. There are parallels between Kya’s crime and that of Owens’s husband and stepson, Mark and Chris, in that both the victims were responsible for reprehensible actions – although that obviously does not justify murder in the eyes of the law.

However, there are parts of the Where the Crawdads Sing true story that are more sinister than initially let on, and the parallels between Kya and Owens don’t help her culpability in the matter. The Mark and Delia Owens story led to a Zambian police investigation and Mark Owens was reportedly involved with a small militia of game scouts that performed a militarized takeover of the conservation area (via IndieWire). Mark has also been accused of setting an air raid against poachers, while Chris Owens was alleged to have beaten the game scouts as a form of control.

In addition to the Where the Crawdads Sing true story controversy, the novel’s depiction of Black people has drawn the ire of critics. There are two central Black characters, Jumpin’ and Mabel, who at times act like surrogate parents to Kya. Unfortunately, their dialogue is written phonetically and their characters, at times, propagate harmful racial stereotypes. In addition, Delia and Mark Owens’ book Secrets of the Human Savannah proposes that Africa needs to control its human population.

What The Movie Changed From The Book

As with most book adaptations, a movie has to make specific changes to condense a novel into a respectable running time while also creating visual representations to things that might be internalized in the written prose. Where the Crawdads Sing is no different. The filmmakers had to take Delia Owens’ novel and find a way to tell the story on the big screen, and to do so, they had to simplify the plot and remove some major plot points that appeared in the book.

The book tells two stories. The first is the death of Chase Andrews and the police investigation into the case. The second is Kya’s childhood, as she grew up essentially alone. By the end of the novel, these two storylines converged to show what likely led to Chase’s murder and Kya’s eventual acquittal and journey to old age alongside Tate. However, one thing that changed was the police arresting Kya at the start of the movie. It happened halfway through the novel.

Explaining this, screenwriter Lucy Alibar said, “We couldn’t have a four-hour movie. There just wasn’t enough time. We worked as hard we could to make it work” (via THR). There was also an omission in the twist at the end. In the movie, Tate finds the necklace after Kya dies, which reveals she killed Chase. In the novel, he also finds a poem she wrote that reveals she killed him as well, and the poem never made it into the movie. Director Olivia Newman said this was important in the movie version.

“I think Kya is a real enigma, and there is something very mysterious about her and so we wanted to maintain that mystery throughout the movie.”

Alibar added, “We wanted to keep it a little more ambiguous honestly because I think life is a little more ambiguous.” The other changes in Where the Crawdads Sing are more about simplifying the story for the big screen. Kya’s parents receive less attention. Kya’s goals of getting published are more important in the novel then the movie. There is also a condensing of scenes concerning Chase and Tate and the complicated love triangle. However, the two are very similar, and the movie maintains the same tone.

Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing is a dramatic mystery film directed by Olivia Newman (First Match, Chicago Fire) and based on the 2018 novel of the same name, set in the 1950s, the film centers around Catherine “Kya” Clark (Daisy-Edgar Jones), a girl abandoned at an early age who is forced to raise herself in the marshes of North Carolina, adapting entirely to the wilderness. After meeting a young boy named Tate Walker, who teaches her the ways of the world by lending her books and teaching her valuable skills, she can sustain herself. However, as Kya enters her late teen years, a whirlwind romance with a young quarterback somehow puts her on trial for murder. Kya will have to prove her innocence to continue living in a world she only now has begun to understand.

Director

Olivia Newman

Release Date

July 15, 2022

Writers

Lucy Alibar , Delia Owens

Cast

Daisy Edgar-Jones , Taylor John Smith , Harris Dickinson , Michael Hyatt , David Strathairn , Sterling Macer, Jr.

Runtime

126 minutes

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