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Title details for Before and After by Judy Christie - Available

Before and After

The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society

by Judy Christie
Lisa Wingate
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The compelling, poignant true stories of victims of a notorious adoption scandal—some of whom learned the truth from Lisa Wingate’s bestselling novel Before We Were Yours and were reunited with birth family members as a result of its wide reach
From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents—hiding the fact that many weren’t orphans at all, but stolen sons and daughters of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity wards that their babies had died.
The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of fifteen adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots and find their birth families.
Before and After includes moving and sometimes shocking accounts of the ways in which adoptees were separated from their first families. Often raised as only children, many have joyfully reunited with siblings in the final decades of their lives. Christie and Wingate tell of first meetings that are all the sweeter and more intense for time missed and of families from very different social backgrounds reaching out to embrace better-late-than-never brothers, sisters, and cousins. In a poignant culmination of art meeting life, many of the long-silent victims of the tragically corrupt system return to Memphis with the authors to reclaim their stories at a Tennessee Children’s Home Society reunion . . . with extraordinary results.
Advance praise for Before and After
“In Before and After, authors Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate tackle the true stories behind Wingate’s blockbuster Before We Were Yours, of the orphans who survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. With a journalist’s keen eye and a novelist’s elegant prose, Christie and Wingate weave together the stories that inspired Before We Were Yours with the lives that were changed as a result of reading the novel. Readers will be educated, enlightened, and enraptured by this important and flawlessly executed book.”—Pam Jenoff, author of The Orphan’s Tale and The Lost Girls of Paris

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 22, 2019

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780593130155

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780593130155
      • File size: 17028 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      October 15, 2019
      From the 1920s to the 1950s, Georgia Tann trafficked children through the Tennessee Children's Home Society (TCHS). Tann manipulated and intimidated impoverished parents into handing over their babies to TCHS and even resorted to kidnapping to obtain charges for her unscrupulous business. Many children died from neglect and untreated illnesses under Tann's care. When Wingate's novel Before We Were Yours (2017), inspired by the scandal, was released, something unexpected happened. Survivors of TCHS began to reach out to Wingate, flooding her inbox with messages. The outpouring sparked an idea: a reunion of TCHS survivors. Wingate called upon her journalist friend Christie to document attendees' stories and give voices to Tann's victims. The authors are careful not to exploit the trauma endured by the victims, and the result is ultimately an uplifting exploration of what family truly means. Most of the stories are touching tales of discovering one's true history and reuniting with biological relatives. This title is an excellent companion to Wingate's novel and will surely be a hit on the book club circuit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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