Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A biracial teenager longs for a different future as she faces her family’s past and the buried secrets of her hometown. “When you have a terrible thing happen that everyone knows about,” 16-year-old Diamond Newberry tells us, “you can be laid out flat by anyone.” It’s 1987 and she’s stuck in Swift River, a decaying New England mill town, laid out flat by just about everyone. At nearly 300 pounds and the only person of color in town, Diamond has been lonely most of her life. The “terrible thing” that hangs over her is her father Rob’s mysterious disappearance in 1980. Rob, who is Black, had been the subject of police scrutiny in the time just before his sneakers were found by the riverside, and Diamond struggles to separate rumors of his fate from fact. Since seven years have passed, Diamond’s mother, Annabelle, who is white, tries to get Rob declared legally dead in order to receive desperately needed life insurance money. But when a letter for Diamond arrives from Rob’s cousin, Diamond realizes how disconnected she’s felt from her father’s family and her “people,” having grown up hearing whispers about a single night in the early 20th century known as “The Leaving,” when all the Black mill workers planned to flee Swift River en masse. Chambers toggles between 1980 and 1987, while also immersing readers, via family letters, in Swift River Valley circa 1915, to tell a coming-of-age story that shows that our entry into adulthood carries with it all the weight of our family history and that of the places we come from. Despite a somewhat inelegant handling of Diamond’s weight, this novel’s assured plotting and emotional resonance should render it a breakout book. Call your book club: This symphonic debut is your next read. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.