Book of Lost Friends

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate delves into the plight of freed slaves during the reconstruction period and how slavery still impacts communities today. Jumping back and forth between 1987 Louisiana and 1887 Louisiana and Texas, The Book of Lost Friends tells the story of Hannie, a freed slave, and those who live in the town that is still controlled by the family of her former slave master.

Hannie finds herself in a tight situation along with her master's daughter and her master's illegitimate daughter. The situations they find themselves in demonstrate the difficulty of being African-American in that time period and being a woman. While in their desperate situation, the find lost friend letters published in a newspaper which helped former slaves to find family members who had been sold to other plantations. They collected this information in a book during their travels. Meanwhile in the current day, a new teacher unfamiliar with the social do's and don'ts of her new community has her students at a low-income school do research on their ancestors. The social codes in this town and the who's related to whom all trace back to the former plantation owners and their off-spring.

Wingate does a marvelous job of depicting the hardships that former slaves experienced and how they were not really free during Reconstruction and even more recently. She also does a marvelous job of showing how those same restrictions and social codes in many ways still exist today and how the former plantation owners simply moved into being factory owners, town mayors, and other "big whigs." This was a difficult book to read simply because these are difficult topics to consider and Wingate demonstrates these are still issues that impact the world today. Highly recommended.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received The Book of Lost Friends from Random House Publishing-Ballantine via NetGalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.