Occhi Magazine columnist Joan Schweighardt has worked as a publisher, agent, ghostwriter, and editor for private and corporate clients. She is the author of seven novels, a memoir, two children’s books, and various magazine articles, including a 10-page story (featuring photos by photographer Michael Dooley) in Parabola Magazine. We had the pleasure of covering her books ‘Before We Died’ and ‘Gifts for the Dead’, the first two novels in her “rivers” series. This month saw the release of the third and final part of the trilogy titled ‘River Aria’. With pleasure, we spoke with her about the book and what we can expect.
Hi Joan, a pleasure to speak to you about your latest novel. For readers unfamiliar with the trilogy, please explain the synopsis and what readers should expect?
The historical moment that ignites all three books is the South American rubber boom, which hit its peak in Brazil in the early 20th century. The first book, Before We Died, begins in 1908 as two Irish American brothers leave their jobs on the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey (across the river from New York City) to become rubber tappers in Brazil. They expect their work in the jungle to be dangerous, but nothing prepares them for the psychological hurdles they encounter. Gifts for the Dead, the second book in the series, deals with the homecoming of one of the brothers, Jack. He arrives in Hoboken carrying not only a deadly disease but also secrets regarding things that happened in the jungle. He is nursed back to health by Nora, the fiancée of the brother who does not return, and together Jack and Nora travel back to Brazil—years after the boom has ended—to shed some light on matters previously concealed. In the new book, River Aria, Estela, an ambitious young woman from Manaus, Brazil, which had been the hub for the rubber industry during the boom, lands a job at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, though only to work in the sewing room. Her good fortune is due in part to a unique and rigorous education provided to her (and a handful of other “river brats”) by a renowned educator and operatic music instructor who visits Manaus from Portugal. She hopes to make it from the Met sewing room to the Met stage, but there are three huge obstacles standing in her way: her American father, her cousin (who has been kept in the dark regarding his own parentage), and New York itself.
How did you come to write the trilogy?
Some years ago I was offered a freelance job with a local publisher wherein I was to read some of their backlist books and write short descriptions of them for their website. One of the books was a slim annotated collection of the edited diaries of a rubber tapper (from Brooklyn, NY) working in the Brazilian rainforest in the early 1900s. At the time I knew nothing about the rubber boom. I read the book twice and afterwards I began to read other books to learn more. Then one evening I found myself watching a PBS special in which a journalist traveling through the South American rainforests asked an indigenous shaman what “northerners” could do to help save the rainforest from the constant threat of destruction, particularly the byproduct of oil drilling. The shaman said we northerners could “change the dream.” What did that mean? I googled the phrase and found those same words used as a tagline by a not-for-profit called Pachamama Alliance. In exchange for supplying legal support to indigenous tribes hoping to push back on oil companies, the tribes were allowing small groups of people traveling with Pachamama principles to visit their villages and learn about their way of life. I signed up. My experience was life-changing. As soon as I got home I began researching in earnest for what would become three novels with connections to both the U.S. and South American during and after the rubber boom.
When I finished the first draft of the first book, I rewarded myself with a second trip to South America, this time to travel on the rivers with a guide and also to visit Manaus. During the heyday of the rubber boom, the European entrepreneurs who oversaw the industry built the Teatro Amazonas, a magnificent opera house, which they hoped would lure world-class performers to the city in the middle of the jungle. A few did come, but some got malaria, and then the boom ended anyway (quite suddenly, in 1912) and the rubber barons fled the city, and the Teatro Amazons was locked up for many years. The Teatro Amazonas was the inspiration for River Aria.
Before We Died is narrated by the character Jack. Gifts for the Dead is narrated by Nora. Will we see this story unfold from Estela’s narrative?
Yes, I had three different characters narrate each of the three books. They all have unique voices, especially Jack, being the only male among them, and a dockworker—from what was then a rough immigrant neighbourhood—at that. But Estela is a dynamic narrator as well, in part because she is both uniquely well-educated and still very much connected to the legends and mythologies that have been passed down to her from indigenous ancestors on her mother’s side. And, she’s very dramatic, either up or down emotionally depending on the moment.
Whilst this is essentially a fictional drama, set between 1908 to 1929, the previous books paid close attention to historical facts and episodes at the time, providing a certain authenticity. Does this thread continue in River Aria?
Yes, except for where I had to use literary license to build the plot, I remained true to the history of both locations that are included in River Aria. Writing about Estela and her cousin’s arrival in New York in 1928 was especially fun. Prohibition was in full swing, as were speakeasies and great jazz and of course opera. The Great Depression was still a year away, and even bell boys were getting rich in the meantime investing in a surging stock market. New York was as festive as it was dangerous, a great setting for two extremely talented but also very naïve young immigrants from Brazil.
The books can easily transform into screenplays for TV or Cinema. Is this something you’d explore?
From your mouth to the right producer’s ears! Yes, the trilogy would make a great series. For one, it moves back and forth between two of the most fascinating places in the world in the 1920s, the New York metro area and Manaus, Brazil, and the rainforests that surround it. These environments are polar opposites but both are lush and high energy in their own ways. Historically the time period moves from a time when electric street lights were just coming into existence to a time of indoor plumbing to movie palaces, WWI, the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression. And that’s only on one continent. Besides the transformation of Manaus during and after the rubber boom, there are stories about the displacement of entire indigenous communities; there is Henry Ford’s (failed) attempt to turn a chunk of the rainforest the size of Connecticut into a rubber plantation.
But even more appealing than the physical settings and the historical events ongoing in the background are the characters themselves, who are always in the foreground. You have the Irish-American contingent from NJ/NY and the Amerindian/European (and, in two cases, American) contingent from Manaus. The three books stick with the same character groups, give or take a few individuals. Collectively their stories are steeped in themes that hit on immigration, sibling rivalry, fortune-seeking, love, grief, greed, despair, and redemption. It’s Peaky Blinders with less violence and a lot more trees.
This is the last of three books but is there a chance of continuing the saga?
All three books felt necessary. When I wrote the first draft of the last book, I gave it a different ending, one that would leave enough of a “cliff-hanger” to accommodate another book to follow. But that ending didn’t feel natural to me. In the next draft I wrote up a more conclusive ending, and that felt right.
The trilogy is complete but, on reflection, is there anything you’d change?
Maybe I would change the structure of a line here or there, but that’s about it. I write a lot of drafts, and I always get input from other writers whose opinions I trust, so I am continuously making changes right up until a book is ready to go into production.
So what’s next? Are you currently working on anything else?
Writing fiction, for me, has the characteristics of an addiction. I keep wanting a more and more intense experience. I started out writing contemporary fiction, and that was fun, but when I wrote my first historical novel (The Last Wife of Attila the Hun), I found out what fun (the writing/researching kind) really is! Now, having concluded a trilogy of historical novels in settings I loved, I am going to have to come up with a whale of a good idea before I can start a new novel. While I wait, I’m going to write some nonfiction. For whatever reason, I don’t require as much from nonfiction as I do from fiction.
Where can our readers find out more about you?
https://www.joanschweighardt.com
https://www.facebook.com/joanschweighardtwriter/
https://twitter.com/joanschwei
https://www.instagram.com/joanschweighardt/
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