The Book of Lost Friends

Hannie, Juneau, and Missy keep moving into the Texas frontier. First, they hitch a ride on a boat heading up the Red River, then steal onto a train heading west into Texas, and finally beg a lift on a wagon. Along the way, Juneau busies herself diligently copying the newspaper ads into a book she is fashioning. She tells Hannie, who cannot read or write, that they cannot possibly remember all the stories. So she must start writing them down. She calls the project the Book of Lost Friends. “What is preserved in writing is safe from failures of the mind” (208), she tells Hannie.

The three are heading to the town of Fort Worth where Juneau believes they will find news from William’s attorney either about her father’s fate or about the disposition of the family farms in Texas and Louisiana. Either way, she will settle her claim on the Gossett fortune. They are both warned by people they meet along the way that Fort Worth is no Dallas; it is still a frontier town, wild and lawless, teeming with dangerous ex-Confederate soldiers unwilling to accept that they lost the war. The way is long and the travel is often dull and uncomfortable.