Behind the Story: The Book of Lost Friends

Lisa Wingate's The Book of Lost Friends was one of our favorite reads (and listens) of 2021. The novel, released in 2020, follows three young women searching for family in the post-Civil War South, and a modern-day teacher who discovers their story and how it intersects with her life.

Much of the plot revolves around "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in newspapers following the Civil War, as newly freed slaves tried to track down wives, husbands and children who had been sold away from them. In a 2020 interview with Authorlink, Wingate said she first learned about the "Lost Friends" ads from a reader named Diane who served as a volunteer for the Historic New Orleans Collection and had been scanning the ads into a database for genealogists and and historical researchers. Wingate followed the link Diane had emailed and "tumbled down a rabbit hole for hours."

"It was both strange and powerful to realize that [their voices of these people] and quite probably their names had faded into history generations ago," Wingate said in the interview, "and yet, in old filing cabinets and dusty university archives, these small bits of their stories had survived.”

"Lost Friends" ads were published in the Southern Christian Advocate, a Methodist newspaper, received by more than 500 preachers, 800 post offices and 4,000 subscribers in its heyday. The idea was that preachers would read the ads from their pulpits to help spread the stories of those searching for missing family members.

According to another 2020 interview, Wingate says Hannie's story in the novel was inspired by a Louisiana/Texas "Lost Friends" ad. "Louisiana and Texas became characters, in the novel, in some ways," Wingate said. "The Civil War and reconstruction history of Texas and Louisiana is unique. Being a Texan, I relished the chance to dig into the history of places I know and love.”

A former journalist, Wingate used her training to help research the book. She spent hours researching online, took a location trip through East Texas and South Louisiana, completed personal interviews, and studied old books and maps to determine the routes and types of transportation Hannie and her companions might have used to travel from Louisiana to Texas in the 1870s. She also turned to primary sources—letters and diaries written during the time period—and extensively studied WPA slave narratives, written as part of Roosevelt's Federal Writers' Project after the Great Depression as writers interviewed survivors of slavery to record their firsthand stories and experiences.

Most of all, Wingate hopes that the book helps readers begin to recognize our similarities rather than our differences.

“More than anything, I hope readers take away a deep understanding of the history as it was, of the human costs, of the pain and hopes of the freedmen and freedwomen who placed the Lost Friends ads," Wingate said in an interview with Family Fiction. “Their strength, their determination, their love of family are a reminder that, underlying our differences, are basic needs that draw us together as human beings.”

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