My story begins on a sweltering August night, in a place I will never set eyes upon. The room takes life only in my imaginings. It is large most days when I conjure it.
All subsequent numbered chapters identify the narrator by name, but the opening of the book features an unnumbered chapter bearing the title “Prelude.” Not only is the narrator not identified, but the narrative commences in a most unusual and unexpected way. Whoever is telling this story identifies the city and the date and the actual setting and even provides a detailed description of the specific place in which the events unfold, but also proceeds to admit—in the very first sentence—that this setting is a place that exists only the imagination.
The setting turns out to be a hospital in which a woman named Christine gives birth to a stillborn baby. A conversation subsequently takes place between the doctor and man in the waiting room who turns out to be Christine’s father who becomes overwrought when informed that in addition to losing the baby, it’s highly unlikely she will ever give birth. This strange interlude ends ambiguously on the doctor’s conspiratorial whisper to the man: “I know of a woman in Memphis…”
“The place was incredibly well respected, and the woman who ran it, Georgia Tann, operated in powerful circles, socially and politically. She was well thought of publicly. People admired what she was doing. She changed the general perception that orphans were damaged goods. But the reality is that the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis was rotten to the core.”
What is important to know about this quote is that though this is a novel, a work of fiction, Georgia Tann actually did exist and actually did do the things she’s accused of doing in the book. It is a fictionalized version of the historical record. The details may diverge, but not the big picture. The story is an exploration of a shocking part of American history that the overwhelming majority of people have never heard about. Before launching into this biographical overview of the abominable Georgia Tann, Trent Turner warns the person he is speaking to prepare for it because there is nothing pretty about it and plenty that is shocking. Ultimately his overview reaches a point of commentary that is such a significant summing up that the final word is italicized to ensure the full scale of the point is made about what was going at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society: “Kids were brokered.”
I don’t want to find out that my grandmother was somehow paying penance for our family’s involvement with the Tennessee Children’s Home Society—that my grandfathers were among the many politicians who protected Georgia Tann and her network, who turned a blind eye to atrocities because powerful families did not want her crimes revealed or their own adoptions nullified.
The person to whom Trent Turner offers a warning about what lies in store for anyone investigating the story of Georgia Tann ins Avery Judith Stafford. She is a lawyer who enjoys the privilege and favor that comes with being born into a powerful and respected family. In fact, her father is a United States Senator nearing the end of his career and nurturing the way for Avery to step seamlessly violate everything that was fought against in order to establish America. This aristocratic assurance stands on the precipice here of collapsing into a cesspool of plain, old-fashioned, low-class corruption. Because, of course, no malevolent figure like Georgia Tann ever rises ever operates in powerful circles, earns a reputation of respect, and is admired by the common man unless there is operating behind the scenes a very sinister system of corrupt power. That’s just the way things work in America and no matter how many times a story plays out exactly the same way it has before, people seem never to lose their capacity to be surprised by the inevitable.
