The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

My recollection of what happened to the slaves after the end of the Civil War is vague at best.  I do not remember talking about these people as individuals but only as a whole....”the slaves.”  Lisa Wingate has written a wonderful historical fiction novel in which she delves into the life that remained after the emancipation. She has chosen to tell this story through two women.  Hannie’s story lies back in 1887 and Benny’s story is current and starts when she comes to teach at the school that is close by the old plantation where Hannie was born and raised.  What Benny finds is a poor town with many secrets that she is determined to uncover. The 1887 storyline begins with Hannie who is working as a share cropper for her former owners in order to reach her goal of land ownership. Because Hannie has a good heart and curious mind she is caught up in the lives of two other women, Missy and Juneau Jane, the daughters of her former master.  These three are brought together as they search desperately for the girls lost father. It is while on this mission that they discover the “Lost Friends” articles that are being published in newspapers. Written by former slaves,  the articles show the pain of people who are looking for their family members who were sold off.  Hannie and the other women begin their own collection of “lost friends” as they travel to Texas looking for Mister.  Wingate masterfully ties the two time periods together when Benny finds the girls handwritten memos and collected notes in the old plantation library and then uses them to enrich her students and awaken in them a sense of purpose and connection.  The story humanizes the freed slaves, highlights their plight and clearly shows pain they feel over the loss of family members.  The storyline movement from past to present also adds to the awakening that you feel as the reader.  As we read the articles, we see people instead of “the slaves” and this makes a huge difference. This is really a book that we all should read.

A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe

Over the years, our book club has noticed that the phrase “It’s All About the Money” comes into play in just about every book we read.  Karin Tanabe in her historical fiction novel, A Hundred Suns, delivers a clear picture of the imperialist French in Indochina.  Centering her story around Jessie an American married to Victor who was a member of the French Michelin dynasty, Tanabe reveals to the reader the cruelty of the French rubber plantation owners to the native people who were forced into a slave like lifestyle working in inhuman conditions on plantations.  The rich expats lived like kings on the labors of the poor people who were not earning enough money to survive.  The storyline was more than just an expose on the living conditions of the poor however.  The development of labor unions organized by the communists gave evidence to show how these radical antigovernment political groups were able to fight the imperialists and to begin the push to remove all foreigners.  The impoverished natives were easily persuaded to join the militant communists who promised to make everyone equal.  The devious plans of empathetic supporter and communist members made the book more of a suspenseful mystery than just a history book.  The treachery of servants, supposed friends, and crooked police added to the tension and hooked the reader from the beginning.  In the end, mysteries within mysteries were uncovered in a most satisfying way.  Tanabe truly has a gift in story telling and revelation of historical periods that ought not to be forgotten.