Before We Were Yours: A Novel

Lisa Wingate has taken one of America’s worst scandals and made it into a very interesting novel. Georgia Tann was the director of an adoption organization based in Memphis, Tennessee that took scandal to a new level. Her organization bribed politicians, judges, police, and the directors of orphanages to develop a criminal enterprise more like the mafia than anything else. They kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all around the country. Children who didn’t cooperate were abused, often sexually, and some were killed and records of their existence destroyed. Though this is a novel, it is based on research and the facts are now well-known. The book is two stories one in the present and one in the past that are clearly related in some way, with the relationship not completely clear until the end. In the present is Avery Stafford, who has been raised in privilege. Her mother is from a prominent family and her father is a prominent South Carolina politician. She is a lawyer who has been practicing in the northeast and is now returning home to help in her father’s re-election campaign. However, with her father’s cancer diagnosis, it is also expected that she will become his successor. In one event, she meets an elderly woman named May Crandall whom she discovers seems to have a close link to her grandmother who is in the initial stages of Alzheimer’s. Avery is drawn to May and drawn to find out how their lives might be linked. The other story begins in 1939. Rill is 12 years old and lives on a shanty boat on the river with her parents and 4 younger siblings. They travel down the Mississippi in the winter and back up in the summer and anchor somewhere during the school year so the children can go to school. Rill loves to read. America is already pulling out of Great Depression but for them, life is still hard. They are now anchored on the shore opposite Memphis and when her mother goes into labor. After it becomes clear that there is a problem and the midwife gives up and demands that her father take her to a hospital, Rill is left to watch over the others but when morning comes, a policeman with other “authorities” arrive to take them to see their parents. In reality, they are taken to an orphanage. At first, Rill thinks it is just temporary while their mother recovers and she struggles to comfort and take care of her sisters and one brother. As it becomes clear that they are being introduced to potential families, she tries desperately to keep them together. The chapters alternate and only gradually do you begin to discover how the 2 may be eventually come together. It is moving and interesting. The only criticism is that it seems too made up. The story of Rill is entirely believable and fits together. It matches the facts. The story of Avery, and even May, seems a little too “constructed” and too good. Avery is from a good family, a prominent family, a society girl who is well educated, pushed by her family to marry a successful man and to be perfect and project just the right image. This is a novel and the author can choose the characters. Is this the right character to be the counterpoint of a novel meant to expose a past scandal? I would have rather it be a character that I could identify with. And the romance, though it was a minor part of the plot, was a distraction. Still, this is certainly a book worth reading. It brings to life a scandal that should be known (and kept reminding me of “Little Orphan Annie,” except that this was very real) and it gives faces to at least a few of the victims.

This book successfully describes the horrible situation of Tennessee Children's Home Society ran by Georgia Tann—a real historical figure, but it's a bit slow. The connection between Avery and Trent is forced, they lack chemistry. Also, the mystery of Grandma Judy's past and its intertwining with May Crandall's doesn't delivered smoothly, but it does intriguing to find out and read till the last page.

Wish I could give this story more than a 5 star rating... Before We Were Yours is a fictional story based on a real life one...the characters are fictional but Georgia Tann was real and a monster in my eyes Tann operated the Tennesse Children's Home where she would get unsuspecting, usually poverty, families to sign there children over to her.. This story covers the Foss children and what they endured...such a sad story and appalling. While reading this story I went through a bunch of emotions... To think of the suffering the children had to endure. After 30 years of operation the home was closed...but not before Georgia Tann made a lot of money... I loved the ending which happened to be a happy one... Highly recommend!