“In my multifold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don’t intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving.”
Secrets have a way of coming out. For one family in Tennessee, the family secret runs deep. Avery is back home to help her family take care of her father, who has cancer, and to be seen so she can possibly run for the Senate seat he holds when he’s no longer able to serve. She misses her hectic life as a lawyer and her fiancé. One day at a nursing home political visit with her father, she meets a woman who seems to recognize her and the bracelet she wears – a gift from her grandmother. Avery later discovers the bracelet is gone and when she returns to visit the woman, there’s a photo in her room that looks very much like her grandmother and herself. The woman claims to know Avery’s grandmother, but won’t say how until she can see her herself.
Before We Were Yours is my local book club’s August book choice. I saw a lot about the book in bookstores and in the newspaper and wanted to read it. It’s historical fiction, which is my favorite genre. I did have to wait a few weeks before it became available from my local library as an ebook through Libby.
As Avery starts delving into her family’s past and its ties to a long-forgotten Memphis scandal, the readers also hear the story of Rill Foss. As a young girl, she grew up on the river with her family on a shanty. One night, her mother goes into labor and the midwife sends her to the hospital. Two days later, people show up to take Rill and her siblings to the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. Georgia Tann runs the house and cruelly keeps the children just taken care of enough to adopt them out to families at a high price. Can Rill find a way to get her siblings out and back to their parents? Where do Avery and Rill’s stories cross paths?
I don’t want to give too much away about the story. Before We Were Yours kept me interested the whole time I was reading it and I stayed up late a few nights finding out what happened next. The children’s home and the details surrounding Georgia Tann are true, and that gives even more weight to this story. It should be read so the children and abuse are not forgotten. It reminded me of Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain – a historical fiction book where the truth told through fiction is important for us to remember. This book will appeal to anyone who loves good fiction, but especially advocates for children and lovers of historical fiction.
What’s the most surprising historical event you learned about? Share on the blog.