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Before and After
- The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's Summary
The compelling, poignant true stories of victims of a notorious adoption scandal - some of whom learned the truth from Lisa Wingate’s best-selling 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 15 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)
What the critics say
“Lisa Wingate’s number one New York Times best-selling novel Before We Were Yours brought worldwide attention to a shocking scandal of lost and stolen children. What she couldn’t know was that her novel would also become the catalyst for survivors, now in old age, to share their stories. Before and After, while at times a very sad and shocking read, is ultimately a collection of astonishing real-life stories of strength, hope, and resilience in the face of the cruelest circumstances. If you read Before We Were Yours, you will devour Before and After.” (Amy Hill Hearth, New York Times best-selling author of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years)
“Fans who couldn’t get enough of Before We Were Yours will devour this book in a single sitting. In Before and After, Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate gracefully chronicle the experiences of survivors forever affected by a corrupt Tennessee orphanage, leading many to a life-altering reunion in search of healing.... Not only a heart-wrenching and inspiring read but also a testament to the incredible power of storytelling.” (Kristina McMorris, author of Sold on a Monday and The Edge of Lost)
“Truly fascinating accounts of relatives lost and found, and of the reverberations through generations of countless families caused by a single person’s greed, these stories of strength, hope, and uncertainty will remain with me.” (Cea Sunrise Person, author of North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both)
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What listeners say about Before and After
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-01-24
This is a great listen.
I really enjoyed hearing the stories of the real children, now adults who were apart of the adoptions.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Karen R Linner
- 2021-01-10
beautiful
To hear the real life stories of this tragedy makes one reflective and appreciative of our own families and family histories. A book that makes you think and reflect is a gift!
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- Amazon Customer
- 2022-07-26
Not what I expected
There were some interesting tales from survivors when they finally got around to them but overall a little disappointing.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2021-08-17
Heartbreaking and uplifting.
It was so great to learn about more of the people effected by these criminal events. Some happy endings to hear was just what you needed after reading Before we were Yours. Amazing writing that keep you wanting to learn more.
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- Radar8
- 2020-05-07
A History of Adoption Back in the Dark Days
A read on how children in the south for 30 years were adopted as a commodity not as human beings ......told by the children interviewed who were part of this process.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2020-07-17
Not for me
Not too many books I give up on, but I did on this one. While the concept was a good idea to hear the stories of the real life people who survived, it didn't seem to tell you enough of a story of each one so you got to know them. It read to me like stating the facts rather than making the stories and people come to life.
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