Swift River

★★★★★★★½☆☆ 7.5/10

368 pages

What’s it about?

Diamond Newbury lives with her mom in the small town of Swift River.  Diamond's dad disappeared almost 7 years ago, and it seems as if she and her mom have just been getting by since.  Being the only bi-racial child in Swift River has always meant she and her mom live on the fringes of the community.  But her mom has a plan to get her father legally declared dead.  Then, she can get their insurance money and start a better life.  Diamond is unsure about this plan but hopes to get her driver's license secretly.  When Diamond gets a letter from a long-lost relative, she suddenly finds a connection to her Black roots.

What did it make me think about?

Sundown towns.

Should I read it?

Essie Chambers writes an outstanding debut novel.  She has a lot of talent, and I look forward to her next book.  Personally, the story slowed down in the middle of the book and was relentlessly depressing in this section as well. The story picked back up in the book's last quarter, and I appreciate that it also had some hopeful moments.  It was a solid book of historical fiction, a coming-of-age story, and a novel about Black history.

A passage I marked

"If I'm on foot people stare so hard it's like I'm on fire.  Heads in cars flip all the way around.  Workers in shop windows stop what they're doing to look at me blank-faced-- as if I'm not their daughter's classmate, their friend's co-worker, like they haven't known me their whole life."