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.
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