Foothills Book Club discussion

The Book of Lost Friends

I read this book with another book club, and I really liked it.
(I like historical fiction.). It intertwines the stories of people who lived in this area of Louisiana after the civil war and the people in the contemporary town (set in the 1980's). There are powerful reminders that you can't ignore history when trying to understand the present. It also pays homage to the oral tradition of storytelling, especially because African Americans were prevented from learning to read and write. I thought this would be a good book for October because of the scene in the graveyard.

In 2020, veteran novelist Lisa Wingate released The Book of Lost Friends, an historical novel set in contemporary Louisiana with flashbacks to post-Reconstruction Texas. The first of the novel’s two storylines traces the adventures of three women who, a decade after the Civil War, undertake a dangerous journey from war-ravaged Louisiana to the open frontier of Texas in an effort to reclaim their families. The second follows the efforts of a first-year high school English teacher in rural Louisiana to use the town’s painful past to excite her students to feel the compelling power of history and storytelling. Critics and readers alike praised the novel, a New York Times best seller, for its inspirational portrayal of the triumph of powerful women in demanding circumstances and its timely message about the importance of learning from history.

I loved Lisa Wingate's book, Before We Were Your's. This one sounds very interesting!!