NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post–Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives.“An absorbing historical . . . enthralling.”—Library JournalBestselling author Lisa Wingate … Journal
Bestselling author Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual “Lost Friends” advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away.
Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia’s Creole half sister. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following roads rife with vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of stolen inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and siblings before slavery’s end, the pilgrimage west reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope.
Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt—until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, is suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lie the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.
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This is a wonderful story based on true facts and records. I felt the beginning was a bit slow but this book is very much worth sticking to it. It can’t and shouldn’t be rushed. There is a lot of humanity and history here. Each chapter is begun with an ad from the original “Lost Friends” newspaper columns.
This story takes place in post civil war Louisiana and Texas, although the ads in the “Lost Friends” column will take us back years earlier. It’s Louisiana in 1875 and we first meet Hanie Gossett standing behind a stockade log fence where slaves are being held during an auction to sell some of them. She’s a young girl and watches as her family is taken from her one by one. Her mama told her never to forget her family, she had made “fifteen tiny poke sacks, hung with jute strings they stole out of the wagon. Inside each bag went three blue glass beads off the string that Grandmama always kept special”.
Circumstances all come together after the emancipation so that Hannie is able to escape. Hannie is going to search for her family and the other “sacks with beads”. She is not alone, she has with her Lavinia Gossett, daughter of the owners and a creole girl, the illegitimate daughter named Juneau Jane. These characters come together under really unusual and incredible circumstances that I will leave you to discover.
They stumble across an old church which is papered inside with newspaper columns. At first they think this is just a covering for the walls until they read the ads and understand that this is a history of many slaves’ lives. While searching for her family Hannie also looks out for those she has found are missing and Juneau Jane adds more names and ads to a book that she has created.
The other timeline is that of a young, inexperienced teacher, Benny, who is starting a new job as a teacher in an impoverished area of Louisiana where the school’s curriculum has little to do with her students real life. They are often absent because there are no parents to make sure they attend school and sometimes they are needed at home to watch younger siblings. Benny is smart enough to quickly discern that she has to find a different way to get through to these kids. She talks about “The Lost Friends” newspaper columns. Once she introduces them to the book and what it is all about they decide on a project to research and reenact one of their ancestors in a program to try to raise money for the school.
Miss Wingate has again written a captivating and intelligent historical fiction novel which teaches while it takes hold of the reader’s heart. I learned so much about the South post civil war and it made that history come alive for me with these characters.
I think that these characters were believable and I found both storylines to be interesting.. In the author’s notes she states that the idea for the book came “to me in the most modern of ways–via e mail. The note came from “a volunteer with the Historic New Orleans Collection”, she’d been entering database information gleaned from advertisements well over a century old. The goal of the project was to preserve the history of the “Lost Friends” column”. From this e mail and the author’s imagination this novel was born.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss.
This book is set to publish on April 7, 2020
Beautifully written historical fiction. I’ve been in the south all my life and well aware of slavery and plantation owners, etc. This book opened my eyes to things that didn’t really cross my mind. These people that were bought and sold had families; most were sold away from one another where they might never see one another again. The Book Of Lost Friends brings some hope to reconnecting. I enjoyed Hatties journey and story in 1875 and then the story of the teacher a hundred years later and how the stories came together. Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the ARC