Rill Foss and her four siblings live a hand-to-mouth existence
on their shanty boat Arcadia with
their loving parents Briny and Queenie. Rill is happy being a water-gypsy,
roaming up and down the wide Mississippi, unaware of her poverty. Until one
terrible night when Rill, being the oldest at twelve, is left in charge of Camellia,
Lark, Fern and baby Gabion. Men come and they are taken. It is 1930’s America
and there is a trade in selling children illegally to childless couples
prepared to pay a high price, particularly if they are fair-skinned and blonde.
Although fictional, ‘Before We Were Yours’ is based on true events surrounding
the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, and the notorious Georgia Tann, who ran
a ruthless adoption racket. Lisa Wingate’s tale has the strength of
authenticity and is a truly distressing story. Run along two timelines, a
modern protagonist Avery Stafford, who is being groomed for high-class
politics, and Rill’s account, at first it is not clear why these two stories
have anything to connect them until the plot gradually gathers pace. Avery’s
struggles with conscience versus ambition, is less gripping, and I felt I
couldn’t wait to get back to Rill’s tale: she has a strong, earthy voice and
her frustration with her own powerlessness as she tries to protect her siblings,
is moving. It is horrifying what Georgia Tann was able to get away with, praised
at first as a great champion of modern adoption in Thirties America. You feel
deeply for those destroyed families, whose only crime was to be poor and
powerless. Good page-turning read.
