Book Summary and Reviews of Swift River by Essie Chambers

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Cathryn_Conroy

An Intriguing and Well-Written Novel: It's a Slow Start, but Stick With It
This is a good book…a very good book. But…and there is a big "but" here: It took about 70 pages before it grabbed me and wouldn't let go. For many readers, this is way too long and too much effort to grasp that literary foothold. Stick with it! It's worth it.

Written by Essie Chambers, this is the story of Diamond Newberry, an obese Black 16-year-old girl living in abject poverty in the horribly racist fictional town of Swift River, Massachusetts. Her mother is White. Her father is Black. And after her father mysteriously disappears in the summer of 1980—although his shoes, wallet, and house keys are found, his body is not—Diamond is the only Black person in Swift River.

The poor mill town has a reprehensible history. One night in the early 1900s, forever known as "The Leaving," all the Black citizens fled before they could be violently expelled by the Whites, which was the original plan. Because they did so on their own terms—all at one time in one night—the White citizens were enraged. Only one Black person remained, a nurse named Clara. The town doctor desperately needed her as his nurse and housekeeper, but she was only allowed to stay in Swift River if she was off the streets by sundown or risk death. And just like that, Swift River became a "sundown town" like 10,000 others in the United States, mostly in the North and Midwest.

But 1987 marks seven years since Robert Newberry seemingly walked off the face of the Earth, and his wife, Annabelle, is determined to have him legally declared dead so she can collect the life insurance money. One day that summer, Diamond receives a letter from her father's cousin Lena in Woodville, Georgia, who wants to teach the child about her family and ancestors, including their Aunt Clara. The two secretly correspond, and Diamond learns her family's history of prejudice and abandonment, as well as love and caring. Meanwhile, Diamond is plotting her own leaving in a town where she endures overt racism and microaggressions from so many—from her classmates to the cops.

Some of the novel—and this is by far the best, most compelling part—is epistolary, told through letters from Lena and Clara. This is only a minor part of the overall book, but it is so good that I was wishing this was the story that was being told.

This is an intriguing and well-written novel that gets better and better with each page turn, a big improvement from the uneven and sometimes flat early chapters. It's a touching book about beginning again, focusing on the perils and regrets, as well as the expectations and dreams, of leaving and starting over and all that entails.