By Lisa Wingate
Dakota County Library audiobook 12 CDs
Read by Sophie Amoss and Bahni Turpin, with five others
Genre: Christian Historical Fiction (post Civil War and 1980s)
Published: 2020
I also ended up borrowing a print copy from Jean in book club, but I mostly listened to the book in my car. As a result, I have very few notes! The chapters alternate between Hannie Gossett (1875-1888) and Benedetta "Benny" Silva (1987). Hannie is a freed slave working as a sharecropper. Benny is the new English teacher in Augustine, Louisiana. There are excerpts from the "Lost Friends" column of the Southwestern newspaper in between chapters. These are actual ads that ran for people trying to find their children, parents, spouses who had been sold away from them in slavery. Heart-breaking . . .
It took me a while to find my favorite quotation in the book, but it really spoke to me. In chapter 24, when Redd Fontaine (and others) have really made life difficult for Benny. "I ponder how we can put a man on the moon, fly shuttles back and forth to outer space, send probes to Mars, and yet we can't traverse the boundaries in the human heart, fix what's wrong." In some ways, I felt as though Benny was too passive. I wish she had stood up for herself more often and more firmly. I loved the dynamic between her and Nathan. I totally pictured her teacher moments!
Hannie traveled with Lavinia, the pampered teenage daughter of Hannie's former master and missus, and Juneau Jane, Lavinia's creole half-sister.
These women and situations were powerfully written. Wingate is an excellent storyteller. The vocal work on the audiobook was wonderful. I hadn't finished it by the time book club met, so my contributions to the discussion were minimal.
As I finished the book, two things I would have liked to talk about were:
1. If the time capsule was buried in 1888, how did the notes from Hannie about finding family as late as 1895 get into the Book of Lost Friends? This doesn't seem like a mistake Wingate would make.
2. At book club, Jodi and Jean talked about the lack of connection between the Lost Friends columns and the storyline. But that's not what I saw! For example, right before ch. 26 is a column asking about the Rideouts (Dick and Peggy and their 16 children, though only 12 are listed!) Then at the start of the chapter, Benny notes "The lawn is freshly mown, indicating that Ben Rideout has been here and done his work earlier today." I noticed others like this; the author was making the connection with the past and "present" and it also connects to the students doing their living history projects.
