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| Essie Chambers (photo: Christine Jean Chambers) | |
Essie Chambers earned her MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell, the Vermont Studio Center, and Baldwin for the Arts. A former film and television executive, Chambers was a producer on the 2022 documentary Descendant. Her debut novel, Swift River (Simon & Schuster, June 4, 2024), is a complex, place-centered coming-of-age reckoning with race and class.
What was the beginning kernel of this book?
I wanted to write about the experience of being a young person growing up in a small, weird, homogeneous town and being isolated, the only one. The image came out of nowhere, of a bigger-bodied person and her tiny mother walking on the side of the road. I knew that I had to write about these people. That was the powerful, impactful seed. I grew up in a small town; it's a very isolating thing if you can't get around. That very first sentence: "The summer after I turn sixteen, I am so fat I can't ride my bike anymore." That sentence came with such clarity. They have to walk. She's a bigger-bodied person; what would it mean for that to be the way she got around?
Why include letters from Lena and Clara?
I grew up writing letters to my elders. I was forced to write thank-you letters, and I came around more willingly with my grandmother; we wrote regularly. I treasure those letters. I got to know a lot about my mom's family through that correspondence. That form is a beautiful way to talk across generations. I knew the present-day story I wanted to tell. As I built the layers and came to understand how big a role history was going to play, I knew I had to connect the history to Diamond in a personal, meaningful way, to deepen the mystery of the community and what happened to Pop, and to give Clara, a character from another time, a real voice.
With Lena, I wanted Diamond to finally have a way to connect to the Black side of her family, but I wanted to maintain the sense of isolation that Diamond had with her mother; that would be gone if they met face to face. The letters were a way for a seed to be planted, and for me to show the ripples in Diamond's life.
Inheritance is such a strong theme in this book. We think of inheritance as money; for her inheritance to be stories and letters just felt really powerful.
Your title is the name of the town. Is the book as much about place as it is about Diamond?
It's absolutely just as much about place. The town is a character. But actually I thought of the title as being the river, rather than the town. River in these mill town communities is so central--it's power, literally. Life-giving power. Rivers have many meanings across cultures. Crossing a river can mean transitioning from one phase of life to another. In Black culture and traditions and spirituality, river can mean life and rebirth, a place where you get baptized, where you wash away your sins and get renewal. All sorts of spirituals have "river" in their title. I started thinking about one called "One More River to Cross." The notion was that getting to freedom was all about crossing many rivers. Just when we think we've crossed all the rivers there's one more to cross. Freedom is so elusive. A river is also dangerous and fast and perilous--it's just so rich.
When Clara is falling in love with Jacques, she talks about not being able to find language for it. It was like the experience of being held by God, when you don't have language and you don't have words, and something is holding you and you can't see it--she likens it to floating on the Swift River, where she just feels held by something divine. What a beautiful feeling that was.
Was there research involved?
A ton, and research led me to the most important part of the book. I knew that I wanted to write about a Black person's experience growing up as the only person of color in a community. I started thinking about Pop's experience. I wanted to do more digging about Black people in rural New England. I was shocked at how little was written about them. I'm drawn to these hidden or forgotten histories. I was familiar with the sundown town, where a predominantly white community excludes Black people with laws, harassment, terrorism, or violence--the name comes from signs that were often posted right at the welcome sign, warning Black people that if they were caught after sunset, they might be killed. I had a lot of assumptions about racist violence in the North versus the South; I was surprised to learn that sundown towns were a very Northern phenomenon. It kind of blew my mind open. I found one book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James Loewen. A detail jumped out at me: sometimes an exception for one or two Black people was made if they were serving an essential function. If they were domestics or something, they would be allowed to stay. And I thought, Diamond is going to be descended from a person who was allowed to stay after a violent expulsion of the Black community. Boom, that was it. That's my connection. That gives her roots; that gives me a chance to explore another character who is experiencing a different version of being the only one. It cracked the story wide open for me. That came from my research. I highly recommend that book.
How does your work in film and television translate to writing a novel?
I am a very visual storyteller. I often see a scene first: the image of Diamond and Ma on the side of the road. It's incredibly exciting. Seeing an image first generates an emotion, and then I get to find the language to channel the emotion. The image gives me confidence that I know what the shape is going to be.
I spent a lot of time telling stories for kids and young adults in TV. I love telling stories about childhood; that moment in life is just so rich. We've all felt the pain of living through this very particular developmental stage. The language is "never" and "forever." The feelings are so big--it's not necessary for big things to happen in order to feel that pain and create drama. That was very much a mantra in telling this story: big things don't need to happen in order to be felt in a big way.
Is the perspective of big bodies under-represented? What does this add to Diamond's story?
I felt like everybody should be able to see themselves in books. I want more, more, more: diversity of story, where weight is not stigma, where weight loss isn't the goal. Bodies not being represented in a stereotypical way. That really had a massive impact on how I thought about telling Diamond's story. I didn't want her to be skinny and happy at the end. I didn't want weight to define her journey. I just wanted people to feel what it felt like to be in that body. It's a way that she feels like an outsider, and that's a universal experience. --Julia Kastner