Gifts for the Dead

Jack Hopper is holding tight to his secret, though it gets heavier by the day. Nora Sweeny is tired of suffering losses and ready to improvise. Their relationship, based on Jack’s lies and Nora’s pragmatism, builds against a background that includes World War I (as experienced from the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey) and escalates when Jack and Nora travel together to the rainforests of South America seeking closure for a life-shattering event that occurred years earlier. Equal parts romance, adventure, and psychological suspense tale, Gifts for the Dead shines a floodlight on the characters’ deepest yearnings and greatest fears.

Title: Gifts for the Dead

Series: Rivers

Genre: Historical Fiction

Author: Joan Schweighardt

Pages: 350

Publishing Date: October 1st, 2019

Publishing House: Five Directions Press

ISBN: 1947044230

(ISBN13: 9781947044234)

My Review

Excellent!

This novel simply is a historical fiction gem. I didn't expect Gifts for the Dead, Rivers Book 2, to deliver such an amazing story. It had me rapture over every page as only historical fiction fans might savor or understand in kin. I do read a variety of other genres, but historical fiction is one fail poof choice for me to return to and balance out all my other reading. As an enthusiastic amateur and lover of history and historical facts, I appreciate the feel of authenticity in characters and setting, while historical events stir an evocative plot amidst conflict. Mainly in a character-driven fashion, this novel pulled all these elements together fluently with vivid details.

This sequel to Before We Died begins by the docks of Hoboken, NJ in the years 1911-1919 for part 1 and is sub-sequentially divided into two more parts for years 1927 and 1928. It has been two years since Jack and Baxter Hopper have left for the Amazon jungle to make their fortune in the rubber trade and have not returned. Maggie, their mother, is holding out on word from them every day and fears the worst. By her side are Nora, Bax’s fiance and childhood friend, offering comfort as much as possible when she isn’t working at the book store, and her friend Clementine, a stout Italian Immigrant woman with ‘gusto’ and no time for nonsense.

The three women fuffing in their ways around Maggie’s little place is one of my favorite parts at the beginning. A little slice of Americana from the docs in Hoboken, NJ imbues a sense of time and place colorfully inspired by hard-working immigrants during unstable economic times. Though Clementine isn’t in the novel for too long, I love the flavor her attitude brings in this generational trio. Nora, the youngest and orphaned at age four, is a rising activist, while Maggie, an Irish immigrant is more of a traditionalist. You will quickly understand that these ladies are different in background, but they come together in trying times. What they don’t know is, that it will turn a whole lot worse for everyone socio-economically and personally.

When the dreaded knock on the door happens, a sick and delirious Jack is dropped off to die on Maggie’s couch and she can hardly keep it together. Nora is the one that nurses Jack back to reality over the next many weeks that follow but he doesn’t want to talk about the haunting details of what happened in the jungle that caused his brother’s death.

After a time, Jack finds employment with the Lipton Tea Company and becomes a loyal employee. He rents a boarding room from a German immigrant lady and helps her whenever things need to be fixed in the house, while she spoils him with German dishes. Nora continues her work as an activist and neither one is really getting over Bax’s death in the haunted jungle. As the plot keeps moving, the narrative changes between the pov’s of Nora and Jack, giving the reader insight into their thoughts and longings and secrets kept on Jack’s part.

Nora makes a daring and unexpected move that turns the cards in the story into happier times for a little while, but a flu epidemic has hit the area hard after the events that lead to WWI. From the big cogs of the political war down to the docs, the workers and their families, the time has turned dire. What has been a thriving community and sprawling melting pot of the Irish, Italians, Germans, and others that have settled into the area, mistrust and hardship create a divide. Schweighardt did a wonderful job shedding light on the ramifications for the people who are torn by heart and nationality, as the events created mistrust and shattered the bond and idealism everyone shared by coming to America.

There are many details that make this story come to life. The characters of their respective nationalities are wonderfully authentic and bits of language here and there, and the little ‘isms’ as I call them make it more interesting. Some moments will have you grinning at the Italian hand gestures in the air for example or nod at the German accents and inherent stubbornness. All in good jest, they are all good neighbors as this story evolves, immigrants working next to each other until the war changes everything.

Jack is harboring secrets. In part three, he is planning to go back to the jungle and he won’t tell Nora why. She insists on going with him and the story changes into a breath of fresh air. The expanse of the Amazon, the lush vibrancy of the animals, people and cities invite to adventure as Nora is invigorated by a sense of freedom never before experienced. But Jack isn’t too far off with his warnings of the danger, albeit savoring her joy and revelry in this new environment.

The Amazon is accompanied by stories of Bax that Jack opens up about and tells Nora throughout their travels. By firelight under open skies or from larger boats to smaller boats, always traveling, their stories create an intimacy of friendship and honesty but not without bouts of disbelief and stubborn silence. A cat and mouse relationship per se is followed as each of them is dealing with Bax’s death in their way, but a huge surprise turn of events will either strengthen their relations or sever them for good.

You will have to find out!

***

I haven’t mentioned all the historical events that are part of this novel, such as the Black Tom Explosion in 1916 on the docs in NJ, other detailed events that lead to the war, The Lipton Tea Company’s reach on households or Fordlandia in Brazil, the prefabricated industrial town intended to be inhabited by 10,000 people to secure a source of cultivated rubber for the automobile manufacturing operations of the Ford Motor Company in 1928. The product is a novel that is jam-packed of historical details and an engrossing plot that snakes perfectly along to connect it all together.

To me, the tapestry of this novel was woven much tighter and more experienced than the first book. I love Schweighardt's historical insights into the areas of Hoboken, NJ and the Amazon jungle. Her voice spoke perfectly in tune with the historical ambiance and the writing was rendered flawless while the evocative plot left no emotion untouched. I cannot point out anything I didn't like about this novel.

Although this is a sequel, I think it can stand on its own without prior knowledge of events. If you are a historical fiction enthusiast, you may not want to miss this one. It is a gem, filled with historical events geographically detailed and rarely read of in other historical fiction novels, as well as executed superbly.

I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.