Sunday, January 17, 2021

THE BOOK OF LOST FRIENDS- JANUARY 2021 BOOK SELECTION

 

This novel by Lisa Wingate is the first selection of my Book Club for 2021. Having read Before We Were Yours by this same author last year, I knew it would be well-written. While I do like historical fiction, it seemed we had read a lot of it during the past year. I was not enthusiastic, but open. The Book of Lost Friends, set during the post-Civil War south and also the present time, was a different iteration of this genre.

Wingate based her idea on true-life ads placed in a newspaper by newly-freed former slaves seeking their lost family members. These stories of loss and separation are heart-wrenching and hard to comprehend. The evidence that this was duplicated at our border just recently does not bear thinking about. The present-day story featured a new teacher seeking to help her lower, socio-economic students of color find part of their history and thus their place in the world.

Three very different women, a former slave, a mixed-race daughter of a plantation owner and the legitimate daughter of that same owner, form the center of the historical story. Due to horrific circumstances beyond their control, they end up banding together to find the missing patriarch of the plantation. With one exception, their strength and resilience form the foundation of their survival.

The modern story follows a teacher in 1987 who, discovering stories of the past, helps her students on a voyage of discovery where they find pride and identity in their own histories. The teacher’s efforts are met with resistance in the small southern town where she is teaching. This resonates with the systemic racism first over one hundred and fifty years ago with the three women, one hundred twenty years later with the teacher. and even now, almost forty years later. Still much to do.

Recommend.



No comments:

Post a Comment