Essie Chambers's debut novel is set in the summer of 1987 in Swift River, a declining New England mill town, and is narrated by sixteen-year-old Diamond Newberry. Since her father Robert disappeared seven years earlier — only his shoes and wallet were found by the river — Diamond and her white Irish American mother Annabelle have lived in poverty, hitchhiking because they have no car, while Annabelle seeks to have Robert declared legally dead so the family can claim his life insurance and recover their house. Diamond, teased about her weight and, since her father's disappearance, the only Black person in town, secretly works to save for driving lessons and dreams of leaving. A letter from Clara, the cousin who raised her father, opens a second, epistolary narrative reaching back through two generations of Black Newberry women to the early twentieth century, and reveals that Swift River was a sundown town whose Black residents were driven out. As the family history surfaces, Diamond's understanding of her father, her mother, and herself changes. The novel joins a coming-of-age story to a recovered communal history, and was a Read with Jenna pick and a national bestseller.
Author: Essie Chambers · Original publisher: Simon & Schuster (New York), 2024
