Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize that the truth is much darker. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together—in a world of danger and uncertainty.
Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancĂ©, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions—and compels her to take a journey through her family's long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or redemption.
Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.
Opening line:
"My story begins on a weltering August night, in a place I will never set eyes upon."
This story was written so beautifully that I wanted to cry and cheer and throw something. The characters, settings, the story lines...all masterfully penned.
A favorite quote:
"A woman's past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses. Her own music. To hear the tune, she must only stop talking. To herself, I mean."
I want to believe that such an atrocity as baby brokering didn't happen in America, but it happen then and it still happens now. Just over fifteen years ago, a friend had her adopted baby taken from her as it came to light that the mother, from the Marshall Islands, realized her baby was taken for adoption and would not be back at age 18. This opened the sinister side of adoption: greed.
But this story, of the Tennessee home and Ms. Tann, is disturbing as thousands of children were whisked from homes and hospitals without consent, and hundreds died. This was in an era where families lost everything and feeding a family was a burden so they sent their children to orphanages in the hopes that they would be taken care of and sent to families who could provide for them. But that was a very small number compared to the kidnappings.
I was heart sick for the parents who lost their children to this system and sick that they never got the chance to be reunited.
Another favorite quote:
"Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment.”
There two possible scenes of rape but they are vague.
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