Swift River | Essie Chambers

This was a good book. The author is also a screenwriter which shows in the vivid visuals of the story. The story centers around a teenage girl named Diamond who lives in a somewhat run-down mill town, Swift River, somewhere in New England. We learn early that she's the only person of color in the town and her father, who is Black, left her mother, who is White, and her on their own. She also weighs 300 pounds, a fact that seems like it could have been handled a bit more effectively in the story.

The story is told in chapters that jump around in time, mostly between 1980 when the father Rob disappeared, and current day 1987 when Diamond and her mother are going to court to have him declared dead, which allows them to cash in on a much-needed insurance policy. But Diamond starts communicating with her father's family in Georgia and receives from her Aunt Lena letters written by her Aunt Clara who was a midwife in Swift River. We learn that Blacks (except for Aunt Clara and Rob who lived with her) were ushered out of the town and were not welcome. A true "sundown town." It's an interesting story told with a lot of compassion.

It also got me thinking about sundown towns and whether my hometown was one. We all know you can search for anything, including a list of sundown towns. So what I learned is that my hometown, while not technically/legally fitting the bill, was, in practice, a sundown town due to very restrictive convenants and codes and discriminatory practices and intimidation. None of which surprised me. I was thinking about how many people of color lived in my town when I was growing up and, lo and behold, there's a website for that too! The first people of color show up in the 1970 census. There were 2. The total stayed below 100 until, I think, the 1990 census. Towns all around had Black residents but not our town. Interestingly, today that same town is majority people of color. Who says historical fiction doesn't have relevance to modern day!