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A review by book_concierge
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
4.0
Audiobook performed by Bahni Turpin, and Sophie Amos, with Lisa Flanagan, Dominic Hoffman, Sullivan Jones, Robin Miles, and Lisa Wingate
For this work of historical fiction, Wingate was inspired by actual “Lost Friends” advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, wherein newly freed slaves search for family members from which they’d been separated. She uses the ubiquitous dual timeline for this story.
Hannie, still sharecropping on her former master’s Louisiana estate, tells her tale from 1875-1876. While Benedetta (Benny) Silva, is a first-year teacher at a poor rural school in a tiny Mississippi River town in 1987-88, trying to engage and inspire her students with a project to look into their own family histories. Wingate moves back and forth from chapter to chapter between these two settings, leading to an eventual convergence of the stories.
I’ve come to really dislike the dual timeline, but I thought Wingate did a marvelous job in this case. And while I thought Hannie’s tale was the more compelling of the two, I also appreciated the “modern” story of poor, Southern blacks and how the system continued to enslave and impoverish them. I did think Wingate tried to hard to make Benny an empathetic character – drawing some nebulous comparisons with her background and those of the children she was teaching. And I didn’t think the nascent love interest did anything to serve the main story.
Still, I was interested and engaged from beginning to end, and I really appreciated learning about the “Lost Friends” advertisements; examples of actual “Lost Friends” articles are sprinkled throughout the book.
The audiobook is masterfully performed by a cast of talented voice artists. Bahni Turpin, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite narrators, brings Hannie to life, while Sophie Amos narrates Benny’s chapters. I did think that Benny came off sounding WAY too young and naïve, especially at the beginning. The other actors fill in the many characters, in both 19th and 20th centuries. Finally , Wingate narrates her own author notes describing how she came to this story.
For this work of historical fiction, Wingate was inspired by actual “Lost Friends” advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, wherein newly freed slaves search for family members from which they’d been separated. She uses the ubiquitous dual timeline for this story.
Hannie, still sharecropping on her former master’s Louisiana estate, tells her tale from 1875-1876. While Benedetta (Benny) Silva, is a first-year teacher at a poor rural school in a tiny Mississippi River town in 1987-88, trying to engage and inspire her students with a project to look into their own family histories. Wingate moves back and forth from chapter to chapter between these two settings, leading to an eventual convergence of the stories.
I’ve come to really dislike the dual timeline, but I thought Wingate did a marvelous job in this case. And while I thought Hannie’s tale was the more compelling of the two, I also appreciated the “modern” story of poor, Southern blacks and how the system continued to enslave and impoverish them. I did think Wingate tried to hard to make Benny an empathetic character – drawing some nebulous comparisons with her background and those of the children she was teaching. And I didn’t think the nascent love interest did anything to serve the main story.
Still, I was interested and engaged from beginning to end, and I really appreciated learning about the “Lost Friends” advertisements; examples of actual “Lost Friends” articles are sprinkled throughout the book.
The audiobook is masterfully performed by a cast of talented voice artists. Bahni Turpin, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite narrators, brings Hannie to life, while Sophie Amos narrates Benny’s chapters. I did think that Benny came off sounding WAY too young and naïve, especially at the beginning. The other actors fill in the many characters, in both 19th and 20th centuries. Finally , Wingate narrates her own author notes describing how she came to this story.