User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
***NOW AVAILABLE***
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
Rating: really liked it
The Book of Lost Friends includes actual ads that were published in Southern newspapers and read to black congregations by their preachers, ads searching for relatives of former slaves. The last time many of these people saw their families was in sale pens and auction yards, as they were being sold off to new owners, one or two at a time, dividing families forever with no way of ever finding each other again. The words are so heartbreaking, so heartfelt, and some of the ads in the book even tell of family members that has been reunited through the ads.
By reading the words of the actual people who lived as slaves and went through being bought, sold, traded, beaten, all of it is so obvious but not gratuitous and also not so in your face you can't keep going. It's real, it happened, you feel the heartbreak of the people who are looking for their families, hoping for news, even if it's bad. Such strong people, white, black, Indian, mixed, being treated badly or treating each other badly.
The 1875 portion of the book follows former slave Hannie, white Missy, whose family had owned Hannie for her entire life, and Juneau Jane, Missy's illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister. Missy and Juneau Jane's father has disappeared and the girls need to establish their claims to their inheritance before Missy's uncles can steal their inheritance from them. When the two girls steal off on a dangerous journey that is a mystery to Hannie, she disguises herself as the wagon driver so she can make sure she doesn't lose her claim to what she's earned as an indentured servant.
In the 1987 portion of the story, young teacher Benedetta is tasked with teaching the kids of Augustine, LA, the poor kids that the rich side of town has neglected, forgotten, and expects to never amount to anything. In fact, these kids believe they will never amount to anything and have never even thought of trying to dig out of the hole of their poverty. Benny is renting a house on the land that belongs to the former plantation of Missy and Juneau Jane's father and she discovers papers that show how these children have a past and a legacy to live up to and to remember.
The book starts very slowly but I think the build up and the background is worth the time it takes to show the link of the two timelines. If there was anything more I'd like from the book, it would be that we got to follow Hannie, Juneau Jane, and Hannie's friend Gus, into the years after the book ended. I didn't want to leave these strong, amazing, people. Hannie and Juneau Jane, while fighting to stay alive, also bring the Book of Lost Friends to all the people they meet. And young Gus vows to pass on what he learned from Hannie, about her missing people, wherever he went, and he is one to never break a promise.
Published April 7th 2020
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for this ARC.
Rating: really liked it
Colored Tennessean (Nashville), Oct. 14, 1865
information wanted of Caroline Dodson, who was sold from Nashville Nov. 1st 1862 by James Lumsden to Warwick, (a trader then in human beings), who carried her to Atlanta, Georgia, and she was last heard of in the sale pen of Robert Clarke, (human trader in that place), from which she was sold. Any information of her whereabouts will be thankfully received and rewarded by her mother,
Lucinda Lowery,
Box 1121, Nashville, Tenn.***Real Ad posted by a family member looking to reunite with a loved one. Just one of many ads placed after emancipation.
Can you even imagine having to write such an ad? Can you imagine having a child, a spouse, a parent, a sibling torn from your life to never have word from them again?
Can you imagine being bought and sold?
Can you imagine having family members who were slaves?
Can you imagine what it must be like to have ancestors who owned slaves?
Can you imagine going on a journey trying to find your father to have the unimaginable happen to you so that it renders you unable to function?
Can you imagine trying to inspire and motivate your students? Find a project which will make them want to learn and be proud of themselves?
Inspired by historical events,
The Book of Lost Friends is a story of three women on a journey in the post-Civil war south, it is also the story of a teacher who rediscovers those women's story and its connection to her students’ lives.
Louisiana, 1875 - Lavinia, a spoiled heir to a destitute plantation goes on a quest with her illegitimate Creole half-sister, Juneau Jane, and her former slave, Hannie. While Lavinia and Juneau Jane are searching for their father and their possible inheritance, Hannie desperately wants to know what happened to her mother and eight siblings who were sold before the end of slavery. Will she ever see them again? Having seen ads along the way placed by freed slaves looking for family members, she wonders, could she find them this way?
Louisiana, 1987 - Benedetta (Benny) Silva is a first-year teacher who is desperately trying to get her student's attention. Absences, hunger, and poverty keep many from getting a good education. Looking through an old plantation for books that her classroom and local library might use, she finds a book - a history of three women. Could this change everything for her class? The three women's journey changed their lives but will also have an impact on Benny and her student's lives as well.
Slow to start this book packed a powerful punch. The story is told in two timelines with the Lost Friends ads placed in between. These ads pack a powerful punch that resonates throughout the book. BTW, all the ads placed by freed slaves have been made into a book titled " Last Seen: Voices from Slavery's Lost Families"
Wingate did a great job building her plot and joining the two-story lines. They are moving and powerful. I found this book to be captivating, thought-provoking, and emotionally moving. I loved books that not only teach me something but affect me emotionally as well. Fans of Wingate and Historical fiction will find this book appealing.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 stars rounded up.
“Dear Editor — I wish to inquire for my people. My mother was named Mittie. I am the middle of nine children and named Hannie Gossett. The others were named Hardy, Het, Pratt, Epheme, Addie, Easter, Ike and Rose and were all my mother had when separated....My brothers and sisters, cousins and aunts were sold and carried from us...and finally in Powell town, Texas, where my mother was taken and never seen by me again...I am well, but my mother is greatly missed by me, and any information of her or any of my people is dearly desired.” From “Lost Friends” column of the Southwestern.
Over the last several years, I’ve read many dual time frame novels and Lisa Wingate in her new novel, connects the time frames and stories and characters brilliantly, even though the narratives are more than a century apart. In 1875, a decade after the Civil War, in Augustine, Louisiana, Hannie Gossett, a former slave struggles to make sense and meaning of “the freedom”. The share croppers on this failing plantation have worked for years to keep the land they have toiled so hard for. William Gossett, the plantation owner is missing and holds the papers that give them their rightful ownership. This is Hannie’s quest until she come across in a church, ads placed by former slaves desperately seeking to find their lost family, mother’s, sisters, brothers separated when sold and finding her family becomes her foremost quest. Two of Gossett’s children, a daughter and his illegitimate Creole daughter are seeking the inheritance that they believe is rightfully theirs, but the papers are missing along with their father. Thrown together in an unlikely partnership these three young women set out on a harrowing journey to secure their futures.
In the second time frame in 1987, Benny Silva, comes to teach in Augustine, Louisiana. She seeks to make an impact on her unruly students, trying to get them to read, to learn. A project to get them to understand their legacy and ancestors is the spark that gets these students interested, when she finds “The Book of Lost Friends” , a compilation of the ads placed in “Lost Friends”column in the Southwestern Christian Advocate Newspaper.
While the book is comprised of these two narratives, the impact of story in my view is contained in each of these heartbreaking ads which appear at the beginning of many of the chapters, quoted from the original which did in reality appear in that paper. The injustice of it, the harsh, horrible treatment and the emotional pain of being separated from your children, your mother, your siblings, separated and sold to different slave holders will churn your stomach and knot your heart. This is a wonderfully told told story of identity, of family, of lives bound by blood, by land, by name, by the awful history of slavery. Recommended to fans of Lisa Wingate and historical fiction readers especially those with an interest in the post Civil War era.
“Dear Editor - I belonged to John Rowden of St Charles county, Missouri. I was called Clarissa. I was sold to Mr. Kerle, a planter. My mother was named Perrine. I was the youngest of mother’s first children. ...I was eight or nine years of age when sold. ...I am alone in the world, and it would be a great happiness to me to know that I had some living kinfolks...”
From “Lost Friends” column of the Southwestern.
I received a copy of this book from Ballantine Books through NetGalley.
Rating: really liked it
Told in dual timelines, Hannie is an 18 year old slave living during the Reconstruction Era in Louisiana in 1875. Having been taken from her family before slavery ended, Hannie joins the plantation owner's daughters on an odyssey of sorts to find the two girls father while Hannie herself quests to find her own mother and siblings. Benny is a first year teacher in 1987 who wants to make a difference in the lives of her Louisiana students. Benny is working on a school project about local family lineage when her timeline crosses Hannie's past.
It was very slow moving and I really struggled with the pacing. The beginning really dragged, but around chapter 9 something happens and it picks up....momentarily. After that moment of excitement, I found myself twiddling my thumbs for quite a few chapters waiting for the story to progress. It had a few more moments of ups, but most of the time I felt disinterested because it was so wordy.
Hannie's story was powerful, and I wanted more from her. I didn't look forward to Benny's chapters as much as Hannie's.
Graphic violence and gory details are completely left out. There is a scene that hints that something derogatory happened, but it must be inferred by the reader.
I would describe this as a lighter historical fiction about family, courage, loss, and friendship.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher. Opinions are my own.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 stars
To tell a tale of loss is never an easy task. The heartbreaking moments are many, and the realization hits the reader that these things so well related in a fictional setting did indeed take place in our country. These are things never to be forgotten, never to be relegated to the back pages of history. These are things in which a living nightmare was experienced.
I have been having a bit of a time lately with the historical fiction genre. I have found it to be more on the fiction end of things than on the historical and for me that has been disappointing. However, with Lisa Wingate's, The Book of Lost Friends, I am very pleased to have found a generous believable mixture of both history and fiction. Told in two time periods, 1875 and 1987, we are transported to Louisiana. It is ten years after the Civil War and the slaves have been emancipated but in essence while they are free their struggles have not abated. It is the South with the attitude of the Klan running rampant. It is also the South where slave families have been brutally separated never to see their loved ones. Sisters, brothers, parents, grandparents have been torn from each other and not a day goes by where one of our main protagonists does not feel that all encompassing loss.
Hannie, the former slave, now sharecropper, and two women, Lavinia, the heiress to a run down plantation and her half sister, Juneau Jane, a mixed race child, set out upon a journey to find their father, to settle an inheritance, meeting dangers along the way and hardship. Hannie, rekindles, as they travel, that question that plagues her constantly, could my family, that was torn from me and sold off, be out there? Hannie so desires connections just as the two half sisters do. Hope dwells in the heart of Hannie and of course the sisters as well. As they travel the book of lost friends takes on a great importance for it is in that book that people pour out their loss of family pining for the time when they can reunite with loved ones. The people in the book pledge their anguish which is then printed in a paper distributed to churches far and wide and read aloud in churches. Names are read, lineages are given, and perhaps some day families and loved ones will be reunited.
The other part of the book which alternates with the 1875 component, deals with a teacher, Benedetta Silva, hoping to cancel her student debt by teaching in a run down poorly serviced school. She is the teacher to a group of high school age disadvantaged children who see no value in learning. She becomes discouraged, disappointed, and bereft as she combats apathy, hopelessness and despair. Bennie trips onto an idea, a glimmer of something that might spur her recalcitrant students. Can a project reconnecting the kids with the past of their town, ignite something in them? It's a risk but one Bennie feels in her heart is well worth taking.
Connections are drawn, family is discovered, and there is renewed interest, understanding, and love shared as the happenings of 1875 unite with those of 1987.
I recommend this book for the gentle telling, the awakening to the horrible instances that happened to so many in our country's history, and the part that history can and does play in the realization that remembrance brings so much into our learning of life.
Thank you to Lisa Wingate, Random House-Ballantine Books, and NetGalley for a copy of this wonderful book due out April 7, 2020.
Rating: really liked it
Note to future self: books starting with "the book of" and especially "lost" aren't your kind of reads.
I really wanted to enjoy this book since Before We Were Yours was one of the best books I've read this year. but I wasn't invested in the story at all and honestly? I couldn't focus whatsoever on the past part (even though it was clearly stated when we switched timelines). I didn't have a difficult time following the "present" timeline so I don't think it was completely my fault. We also had different narrators so not sure what exactly went wrong.
I didn't have any issues with the story itself (e.g. annoying characters, stupid events, etc.) as much as I simply wasn't into the story nor its characters. I think the idea isn't bad but it's too close to
Before We Were Yours in execution and the general idea. I don't like that and it didn't work here at all. It lacked the depth I loved about the first book.
I don't think I'll be writing more about it because I really don't have much to say other than I was bored and the story executed was not impressive even if the idea behind it is. I will still keep an eye out for Wingate's future books because she's a talented writer.
Rating: really liked it
An amazing historical story based on real articles written in the late 1800’s by former slaves searching for members of their families whom they were torn from.
Three women- as different as they can be - a slave, a mulatto and a white - are brought together in a perilous journey to Texas for their own truths.
Simultaneously, Benny, a teacher who has just recently moved into Augustine a century later, finds ledgers of these slavers of who they were sold off to. Searching to bring some history to the community, this is a search for roots- for families who once existed. She and her class become the voices of these lost people.
Wingate weaves a spell in every chapter making me want to continue with one character and then immersing me in the next one. Well done.
And Hannie...a spectacular character. A woman of strength, integrity and relentless pursuit in locating the matching her blue beads of hope to find her own lost friends.
4.5⭐️
Rating: really liked it
The Book of Lost Friends is a novel inspired by historical events. The " Lost Friends" were advertisements that appeared in Southern Newspapers after the Civil War as freed slaves searched for family and loved ones who had been sold off. We can’t change our histories, but we can own them, learn from them and educate our children Having really enjoyed Lisa Wingate's
I was really looking forward to this novel as the premise is so interesting. What an engaging and compelling novel this was, and you can’t help but be moved by this story. There are two compelling stories to ‘The Book of Lost Friends’ Louisiana 1875 and the story of three young women who set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest and Louisiana 1987 and the story of Benedetta Silva, a teacher in a poor rural school in Augustina, Louisiana. But where a run-down plantation home holds the century old history of three young women, a long ago journey and a hidden book that could change everything.
Slave definition......A person who is the property of another person and has to work for that person. Collins English Dictionary. How could any human being think they had/ have the right to consider another human being their property.
I love historical fiction when it can take a reader on a journey back in time, and in telling a fictional story but based on true events educate and inspire that reader. The book of Lost Friends is such a well written, heartbreaking but powerful read.
I loved the construction of the story. The author starts each chapter with the actual advertisements that were placed by former slaves who are trying to find their families.
Sometimes with historical fiction stories with two time frames can be a bit choppy and I have a tendency to lean towards the historical element of the story and get a little bored of the modern part, but not so with this novel, but stories are equally entertaining and held my interest.
An uplifting read and a book I will be recommending to many of my friends.
I listened to this one on audio and the narrators were excellent. My only disappointment is that I don’t have a hard copy for my real-life bookshelf.
Rating: really liked it
2.5 STARS rounded up! So it's with a heavy heart that I leave this not so favorable review and by the looks of it I am definitely in the MINORITY so far. I am heartbroken and disappointed that I didn't take more away from this book than I hoped to. This is my third novel by Lisa Wingate and I have absolutely adored her previous books. "Before We Were Yours" will forever be a favorite of mine. I commend these types of authors for putting in the work and research it takes to make a book like this as authentic as possible, Unfortunately, I continuously struggled the entire way through and had difficulty connecting to any it. From the pace, to the flow of language, it was all very disjointed for me as a reader. Of course it's well-written Lisa Wingate is a brilliant author, it just lacked anything compelling for me to keep my attention. It is a courageous story and a time in history that continues to fascinate me as a reader. The Book of Lost Friends, historically was something I had never heard of and if this book is able to bring that to light and make people aware than it prevails. I do think this book will have great success with readers but regrettably my opinion was less stellar than I would have hoped. Again a special thanks to NetGalley and the publishers at Random House- Ballantine books for providing me with an early digital copy.
Rating: really liked it
Lisa Wingate has woven together two wonderful stories to make this absorbing historical novel set in 1875 and 1987.
Following the abolition of slavery in America, many freed slaves had no idea where there families were as they were previously sold off and dispersed by their owners. In 1875 young Hannie is the last of her large family left on the Louisiana cotton farm where they were slaves. Accidently forced to accompany her previous owner's daughter, Lavinia and half daughter, Juneau Jane on a quest to look for their father, she wonders if any of her family are still alive and looking for her. Along the way she discovers a Southern newspaper that publishes a column of ads called "Lost Friends" published for freed slaves looking for their families.
In 1987 a young teacher, Bennie Silva is trying to get her disengaged students in an impoverished rural Louisiana school interested in reading. She discovers that her students don't know anything about their family trees but are fascinated to learn about their ancestors and their lives. With many of the students being the descendants of slaves they soon become engaged in researching the stories of the freed slaves who stayed in the area and Hannie's story comes to life.
This is a wonderful, well written and heartfelt novel with very realistic characters. Both stories made for compelling reading, particularly as they were based on real history from a time I knew very little about.
With many thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Books for a digital copy to read.
Rating: really liked it
4+ stars
Dual storylines have been very popular in the last few years. My experience has been that one storyline is always stronger, more relatable. Not so in this beautifully written and well researched novel. It is the best example I have read of how well this approach can work. As the author expertly weaved the two stories tighter and tighter and the relationship became more evident, I was reminded of those H.S. math problems. Two trains are traveling at different speeds and will cross paths at what time? I hated those problems and didn't care if they ever met or even derailed. I cared very much about the intertwining of the post-Civil War sojourners and the young H.S. teacher and her impoverished mixture of students.
Both storylines involved journeys, physical journeys and journeys of self-awareness. Family members are lost through forced separation or chosen alienation. There was a desire, then and now, to feel connected. (Maybe why ancestry searches are so popular.) Most humans need others, family or friends for support, encouragement, companionship. Horrific things occurred and some survived and some succumbed, but then and currently, there was goodness. Though there was a great diversity in these two stories occurring over 100 years apart, there was a commonality, a fine balance.
The Book of Lost Friends is historical fiction at its finest. It was not sentimental, just deeply moving. It left me hopeful, and with all the discouraging news in the world today, a little hope goes a long way for me.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars, rounded up
Thank heavens for other GR reviews that mentioned that this book starts slow and to stick with it. Because it definitely was a slow start for me. But I’m glad I stuck with it. It’s an interesting story with enough historical facts to be educational. I loved the premise of this story. It’s so obvious that after the civil war, freed slaves would look to find family, no different than the Holocaust survivors 80 years later. But this is the first book I know of that has tackled the subject. And Wingate’s use of actual ads placed brought a real poignancy to the story.
We hear from Hannie, a freed slave and sharecropper that ends up in an Odyssey in an attempt to track down her sharecropper contract. Before she knows how, she’s caught up with her ex-master’s white and “yellow” daughters, both searching for him.
Dual timelines have been a bit overdone in historical fiction lately. The second story involves Benny, a new English teacher in Augustine, LA. In an attempt to engage her students, she starts a genealogy project with them. Benny’s story helped to show how systemic racism still persisted 110 years later. But at times, it kept me thinking of Up the Down Staircase or To Sir, With Love - the single engaged teacher fighting to actually teach the kids self worth.
I was thrilled to learn that the basis of the plot came from an actual lost friends ad. As is so often the case with me and historical fiction, I liked the Author’s Npte as much as the story.
You know how a narrator can make or break a book? Personally, I didn’t care for the narrator who tackled Hannie’s voice. Wingate writes at the end of the book about the use of appropriate language for the 1870s. It wasn’t the language, but the narrator’s voice often came across as more caricature than real.
I wasn’t as engrossed by this book as many other reviewers. But it’s an interesting story about a time that hasn’t been widely tackled in fiction.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 Stars
History has much to teach us. At the beginning of this book, there are notes from Lisa Wingate, about Dialect and Historical Terminology, which is where the above quote is taken from. She goes on to say:
”That was one of the reasons for the inclusion of the real-life Lost Friends ads in this book. They are the stories of actual people who lived, and struggled, and who almost inadvertently left these small pieces of themselves for posterity.”Told in two different time frames, this begins with one of the
Lost Friends letters to the editor, a plea to anyone reading or hearing their story, the family they seek to find some word from, or about, knowing that the possibilities are slim, and how often names were changed along the way as names may have changed along the way. Pastors were requested to read these pleas to their congregations.
”At the very least, we must tell our stories, mustn’t we? Speak the names? You know, there is an old proverb that says, ‘We die once when the last breath leaves our bodies. We die a second time when the last person speaks our name.’ The first death is beyond our control, but the second one we can strive to prevent.” As this story begins, the initial timeframe is 1875, in Louisiana, with Hannie Gossett sharing her story, through the retelling of a dream - a memory of when she was six years old and watching buyers gather to buy her family a little at a time, she sees them being carted off
one by one and two by two, listening as her mother recites their names, and the names of those who took them, and where they were being taken. Along with Hannie, the stories of Lavinia, the daughter of Hannie’s former owner, along with Juneau Jane, Lavinia’s half sister, the daughter of Lavinia’s father and Juneau Jane’s mother, who was also owned by Lavinia’s father.
The other timeframe in 1987, also in Louisiana, and this time is shared through a new teacher, Benedetta, Benny, Silva, teaching students from seventh to twelfth grade. Students who don’t want to be there, and frequently don’t show up. She begins searching for a way to motivate these students, to reach them on some level so that they will want to learn. It is a struggle, for both the students, and the teacher, until she discovers a book that will change everything.
There’s so much more, but this is the kind of story that deserves to be discovered by each reader.
Very moving stories are shared in both timeframes, and the Lost Friends letters are especially poignant, as these are letters that were written by real people who were searching for their lost loved ones – lost because their families were scattered, one from another, by those that purchased them as slaves, sending husbands away from their wives, mothers from their children.
Listen, the road seems to admonish. Listen. I have stories.Published: 07 APR 2020
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine / Ballantine Books
Rating: really liked it
I am so disappointed. I loved "Before We Were Yours" so much, and I struggled so hard to even finish this book. I think the Hannie chapters, in particular, were difficult to get through. It was endlessly descriptive about unnecessary details, and while of course I understand the use of dialogue true to the time and place, it really made it hard to follow. Especially since you were back and forth between the two time periods every single chapter - you couldn't settle in to a particular time period before you were transported forward or back.
And then the reveal at the end about Benny? What?! Tell me earlier in the story so it can be part of her character development or don't include it at all.
