Before We Were Yours

‘Before We Were Yours’ is a polyvocal masterpiece written by renowned American writer and former journalist, Lisa Wingate, based on the true accounts of child trafficking and abuse which were prevalent in Tennessee, USA, around the late 1930s.

Gripping and captivating, Lisa Wingate’s ‘Before We Were Yours’ focuses on the Foss family and takes a deep dive into the investigation of the scandalous activities of Georgia Tann, who is not only a character in Lisa Wingate’s book but also a real-life child trafficker who lived during this period.

Key Facts About Before We Were Yours

  • Book Title: ‘Before We Were Yours’
  • Author: Lisa Wingate
  • Language: English
  • Antecedents: Economic hardship caused by the event of The Great Depression, and the subsequent illegal child care activities perpetrated at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society (TCHS).
  • Publication Date: 2017
  • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  • Genre: Historical Fiction
  • Setting: 1939, Memphis, Tennessee. Aiken, South Carolina
  • Total Page Number: 384 Pages
  • Climax: When Avery stumbles upon the truth that her grandmother, Judy, is one of the seven stolen children of Queenie Foss.

Lisa Wingate and Before We Were Yours

The history of the stolen children in Memphis Tennessee caught the eye of Lisa Wingate, who agreed the level of the catastrophe had a sustained impact on her imagination.

Lisa Wingate, who is a mother of two children – all-male, understood the degrees of pain the victims and their parents must have faced during these mean acts. Scenarios like a child dressing up and going out to the school in the morning but never coming back because they’ve been stolen – became the order of the day.

The height of it was that when parents updated authorities about their missing children, no real help was offered because the majority of the law enforcement agents in Memphis were accomplices to the plot and had their cut in revenue for every successful child abduction.

For Lisa Wingate, the story was deeply touching and stayed with her, and the only way to extricate herself from it was to write a novel off it; creating fictional characters that make up the Foss Family so that she could install, in the same amount, those degrees of pain and suffering felt by the real people who lived it.

Before We Were Yours Digital Art
Before We Were Yours Digital Art

Books Related to Before We Were Yours

Lisa Wingate’s ‘Before We Were Yours,’ in many aspects, has a resemblance to a lot of other books written by different authors. For one thing, the book is related to Min Jin Lee’s ‘Pachinko’ for the fact that it’s based upon an important historical time – and takes a cue from a certain significant event that has happened a long time ago.

For another thing, Lisa Wingate’s ‘Before We Were Yours’ also plays with time setting through flashbacks and flash-forwards – often drifting from the present into the past and vice versa, making an inch similar to H. G. Wells‘ ‘The Time Machine’, although unlike the Wells’ that uses a specialized contraption, Wingate opts for a drifting through time with the mind.

The Lasting Impact of Before We Were Yours

The subject covered by Lisa Wingate’s ‘Before We Were Yours’ is one that begs to be read. To the reader, there are so many qualities that make the book enticing; the plots mesmerize and thrill, break hearts and heal them – and so on. These sorts of qualities make ‘Before We Were Yours’ stick and have a lasting impact on the reader.

Beyond the single reader, ‘Before We Were Yours’ is also one book that can’t be easily shaken off or forgotten by the world or at least millions of people who have read it. Part of the many reasons is because it connects people to such an important history of child trafficking and abuse in such a compelling way that readers feel like they themselves are characters in the book.

Before We Were Yours Review ⭐

Lisa Wingate’s ‘Before We Were Yours’ follows a gripping story of a secret family history which is tied to a series of child adoption scandals connected to Georgia Tann, one of America’s most notorious child trafficker.

Before We Were Yours Themes and Analysis 📖

‘Before We Were Yours’ touches across a wide range of themes: From virtues – such as family bonds and values, to vices – such as political corruption, child molestation, illegal child adoptions and trafficking.

Before We Were Yours Summary 📖

‘Before We Were Yours’ by Lisa Wingate is a polyvocal narrative that switches between two central characters to nail the mystery behind the infamous George Tann’s illegal adoptions and child trafficking scandals in Memphis.

Before We Were Yours Best Quotes 💬

The best Lisa Wingate’s quotes from ‘Before We Were Yours’ are so powerful they invoke, in the reader, the spirit of the times during when these merciless acts were carried upon Tennessee children.

Before We Were Yours Character List 📖

‘Before We Were Yours’ sees Lisa Wingate use a specialized character-builder technique – which results in some principal characters having double persona; the first being a younger version of themselves from years ago, and the latter being their present day self.

Before We Were Yours Historical Context 📖

Lisa Wingate’s ‘Before We Were Yours’ is built on the historical background of a series of child trafficking events around 1930s Memphis, Tennessee. This inhumane event was triggered by a widespread poverty resulting from The Great Depression.