Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

I grew up listening to stories detailing my parents lives during the depression years.  They told unbelievable tales of having little food, being grateful for hand me down clothes, and of working multiple odd jobs and then giving the money earned to their parents in support of the family as a whole.  Even as desperately poor as my parents were their lives really were not as horrible as many.  In Lisa Wingate's novel, Before We Were Yours, we see that the trauma felt by many children of the depression was almost unbearable and the depravity of some adults was beyond evil.  Wingate incorporates the real life orphanage director, Georgia Tann, into her historical fiction.  Hailed as a visionary philanthropist, Tann in fact kidnapped children from poor desperate families and "sold" them to people who longed for children for but were unable to have them on their own.  Large sums of money was given to Tann,  some in the form of blackmail after she placed a child.  Before We Were Yours is told through two viewpoints.  The first narrator, Avery, comes from a wealthy, political family with deep southern roots and years of social service.  This family works at being upstanding and beyond reproach.  The second narrator is Rill a depression river rat, who we discover is one of the stolen children in Georgia Tann's network.  Wingate tells us the story of these two women and their families with careful intertwining narratives that unravel a mystery filled with unexpected connections and surprising decisions made to protect the innocent.  This is a really satisfying read.  The characters are sympathetic,  the choices they made are understandable and the informative backstory is really unbelievably heart wrenching.  None of us can ever really understand the affect the Depression had on the people who lived through it, but we can appreciate the resiliency of those who came through it and lived a full and productive life.