Swift River
'I loved everything about it' Curtis Sittenfeld
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
** Winner of the 2024 BARNES AND NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZE | Longlisted for the 2024 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE and the 2025 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION | An ELLE, NPR and WASHINGTON POST Best Book of 2024 **
'Brilliant, funny, warm-hearted' Guardian
'I love a novel this much maybe just once or twice a year' Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Romantic Comedy
What if the price of moving forward is losing the only family you've ever known?
Summer, 1987. On the sweltering streets of the dying New England mill town of Swift River, sixteen-year-old Diamond Newbury is desperately lonely. It's been seven years since her father disappeared, and while her mother is determined to move on, Diamond can't distance herself from his memory. When Diamond receives a letter from a relative she has never met, she unearths long-buried secrets of her family's past and discovers a legacy she never knew she was missing. The more she learns, however, the harder it becomes to reconcile her old life with the one she wants to lead.
So begins an epic story spanning the twentieth century that reveals a much larger picture of prejudice and love, of devotion and abandonment - and will change Diamond's life forever.
'Swift River broke my heart, and then offered me hope' Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful
'Sensational' Paul Beatty, author of The Sellout
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chambers debuts with a poignant coming-of-age story about a Black girl growing up in a predominantly white New England town north of Boston in 1987. It's the summer before Diamond Newberry's junior year of high school, and she and her Irish American mother, Annabelle, have been struggling to make ends meet since her father, Robert, disappeared seven years ago, when only his shoes and wallet were found on the side of the river. Knowing Annabelle would disapprove, Diamond secretly works at a motel to save money for driver's ed lessons. After she befriends fellow student Shelly Ostrowski, the two begin making plans to move to Florida together following graduation. Diamond's impulse to start a new life is driven partly by her mother's continued struggle to obtain a death certificate for Robert, which they need for the life insurance benefit, and by Annabelle's hurtful scrutiny. While plotting to leave, Diamond also exchanges letters with her father's cousin Clara, who raised him. From Clara, Diamond learns more about the Black side of her family, and why they left town for Canada. Tension mounts as Diamond struggles to find a way forward and her bond with Annabelle stretches to its breaking point. Adding to the story's depth are complex characterizations and intriguing epistolary interjections from Clara. Chambers's assured first novel sings.
