Originally from New Jersey, Joan Schweighardt has worked as a freelance writer, editor and ghostwriter, a literary agent, and an indie book publisher over the years. Her resume includes several magazine articles, a memoir, and several novels, including Gifts for the Dead, the second book in the trilogy of dramas set during the South American rubber boom. We had the pleasure of speaking to Joan last year. We caught up with her again to find out what to expect from this latest installment.
This is the second book in the trilogy so what should we expect in this installment?
The first book in the trilogy, Before We Died, tells the story of two Irish American brothers—Jack and Baxter Hopper—who leave their jobs working on the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey to travel to the Amazon jungle in the year 1908 to become rubber tappers. They do this in part because they have been grieving since their beloved father’s accidental death, and they are hoping for a distraction from their sorrows. Being young fellows who have never been away from home, they are also in for the adventure, and for the money, they believe they will make. They are unprepared for the things that happen to them.
Book two, Gifts for the Dead, opens with Jack’s return from the Amazon two years later. He is alone, without his brother, and sick with malaria and other jungle diseases and very close to death. Accordingly, he is not able to talk to Nora, the woman his brother intended to marry, or to his mother, about what happened in the jungle, particularly, about what became of Baxter. He is determined to take his secrets to the grave with him, but of course, that’s not what happens.
Was your approach to writing the second book different?
Unlike Before We Died, which is narrated by Jack, Gifts for the Dead is narrated by Nora, though there are chapters from Jack’s point of view as well. Being an orphan since the age of four, Nora attached herself to the Hopper family early on, and she is in the best position—given Jack’s health—to pick up the narrative thread. Whereas Before We Died is necessarily a story mostly of men (women didn’t become rubber tappers), Gifts shines a light on the female characters that were introduced in book one. The plot is carried forward in part by the relationships among the various characters, men and women, and in part by the history of the times.
Changing narrators from book one to book two was a bit of a shift. Besides the obvious gender dichotomy, Jack, the son of Irish immigrants and a dockworker from what was then a rough neighborhood, speaks quite colorfully, using not only Irish-isms but also plenty of slang. Though Nora’s ancestors are Irish, her parents were born in New York, and the aunt who raises her, though herself from the Emerald Isle, goes to great lengths to speak “good American English” and insists Nora do the same. As a result, the reading experience is different from one book to the other, but the storyline still holds to the trajectory begun in Before We Died.
Also, Gifts for the Dead is more domestic; more than half of it takes place in Hoboken, as opposed to the first book, where maybe 80 percent takes place in and around the rainforests of Amazonas. But don’t think for a moment that means there is less going on. Gifts unfolds before, during and after WWI, a war that had a monumental impact on the little town of Hoboken. German companies, such as the Hamburg-American, owned the great ships that sat in the Hoboken harbor; Germans made up the largest immigrant community in Hoboken at that time. Even before the US got into the war, German Americans in Hoboken, and throughout the country, began to be regarded with suspicion. Then, when the US declared its entrance into the war, soldiers marched into Hoboken and took over the shipyards, imprisoning or exiling the previous owners and those who worked for them. As they readied the ships to transport “doughboys” from all over the country to Europe, they declared that any Germans living within a half-mile of the shipyards had to leave or face the consequences. Meanwhile, in the country at large, President Woodrow Wilson was busy creating a huge propaganda machine, to ensure that Americans, so many of whom were immigrants with divided loyalties, were as pro-war as possible. There was even an Espionage Act, which made it a crime to speak out against the war effort. My characters are impacted in various ways by all these events, especially Nora, who is very political.
In the last third or so of Gifts for the Dead, Nora and Jack return to the Amazon, seeking closure for events that happened in book one. By then the rubber boom has come to an end and automobile manufacturers and others are getting their rubber from plantations in English territories in East Asia. But Henry Ford had it in mind to create his own rubber plantation in Brazil, even after he was told that there is a leaf blight that makes it impossible for rubber trees to be grown close together. His attempts to create a city devoted to the rubber industry in the middle of the jungle drive the decisions of the characters both in Gifts for the Dead and in the third book, which I’m still working on.
Your books could be screenplays. Would you welcome your books becoming a film or TV production?
Yes! What happened 100 plus years ago is a mirror for many things happening today. In the US (and elsewhere) there is a great divide between people resulting from their political beliefs, from how they react to immigration issues and what they think of nationalism. And even in the Amazon rainforest, much of which is currently burning due to the greed of politicians and industrialists, we can look back at the rubber boom, and at Henry Ford’s attempt to burn a huge swatch of jungle in order to build his plantation, and see that the present is reflected in the past. I believe viewers would be intrigued to see on the silver screen—or the TV screen—how everything old is new again.
Before I started on this trilogy, I knew nothing about the rubber boom in South America. It was short-lived (1879 to 1912), so perhaps it didn’t get much attention. More likely it was mentioned in some high school textbook and I just didn’t absorb it. But I happened to read a diary written by an actual rubber tapper from that time, as an assignment for a freelance job I was doing, and I was immediately hooked and knew I would write a fictionalized version of the boom myself.
The rubber boom is where my research began, but it spread out from there, and before long I had turned up an embarrassment of riches. My three books (the last one should be out this time next year) collectively cover the years 1908 to 1929. They move back and forth between two continents and two groups of people: the Irish American contingent from Hoboken, and a mixed-race (indigenous Brazilian and European) group from Manaus, Brazil. These two groups are very different, but they are bound together by external circumstances. While the richness of the historical stuff speaks for itself, the characters’ interactions provide the love, greed, grief, betrayal, revenge, and redemption that stories rely on to be successful on the screen.
What are the other projects you have on the horizon?
As I mentioned, I still have to finish book three, which will be titled River Aria. I’m ending the series with a bit of opera, which gives me a chance to write scenes against the stunning backgrounds of two great opera houses, the Teatros Amazons in Manaus, and the Metropolitan (the old Met, not the newer one at Lincoln Center) in New York. I’ve been living in this fictional world for some time now; I’ve made two trips to the rainforest, and I visit Hoboken whenever I’m on the east coast. I’ve done so much research that sometimes I feel like I got into a time machine and forgot to set the timer. When I’m done with River Aria I think it will be time to go in another direction. I have three possible projects in mind.
I should also mention that I had a kids’ book release just recently, called No Time for Zebras. I never expected to write a kids’ book, but I did and it was fun. Waldorf Publishing hooked me up with a very talented young artist, Adryelle Villamizar. It was a good experience and I have one more kids’ book in me, so there’s that.
When you’re not working hard or working out, what do you do for fun?
You’ve heard of Ivan the Terrible? A friend of mine has dubbed me Joan the Busy. When she first came up with that, I was taken aback. But I’ve since come to realize it’s true. I am essentially a very busy person.
Until recently I made my living writing, editing and ghostwriting for private and corporate clients. These days I’m taking on less and less client work, but I’m making up for it with my projects, and by doing pro bono work, mostly on behalf of other writers. I still sit at my desk the same number of hours a day that I always did. The things I do when I’m not at my desk include hiking, reading, painting (canvases, not walls), and hanging out with my husband and our friends.
What’s something a few people know about you?
Now that’s a funny question. The last time I was asked it, I replied that I make the best omelets ever, which is true, but it’s also a cop-out, because who cares, right? So I’ll give you a genuine answer. I had a very peculiar childhood. I wrote a memoir about it, but I published it under a pseudonym. And that, you see, is why it remains something few people know about me.
Where can we follow you on social media?
Website: https://www.joanschweighardt.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/joanschweighardtwriter/?epa=SEARCH_BOX
FB page for my children’s book, NO TIME FOR ZEBRAS: https://www.facebook.com/NoTimeForZebrasBook/?modal=admin_todo_tour
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joanschwei
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joanschweighardt/?hl=en
Photography by Michael Dooley.
About Author
