The Lost History of Stars: A Novel

by Dave Boling Narrated by Gemma Dawson

Overview

In turn-of-the-century South Africa, fourteen-year-old Lettie, her younger brother, and her mother are Dutch Afrikaner settlers who have been taken from their farm by British soldiers and are being held in a concentration camp. It is early in the Boer War, and Lettie's father, grandfather, and brother are off fighting the British as thousands of Afrikaner women and children are detained. The camps are cramped and disease ridden; the threat of illness and starvation are ever present. Determined to dictate their own fate, Lettie and her family give each other strength and hope as they fight to survive amid increasingly dire conditions.



Brave and defiant, Lettie finds comfort in memories of stargazing with her grandfather, in her plan to be a writer, and in surprising new friendships that will both nourish and challenge her. A beautiful testament to love, family, and sheer force of will, The Lost History of Stars was inspired by Dave Boling's grandfather's own experience as a soldier during the Boer War. Lettie is a figure of abiding grace, and her story is richly drawn and impossible to forget.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

04/24/2017
In his new novel, Boling tries to do for the Boer War what he did for the Spanish Civil War in his previous novel, Guernica, but with uneven dramatic results. The year is 1900 when 13-year-old Lettie, her siblings, and her mother are removed from their family farm in South Africa by British soldiers and taken to a concentration camp for Dutch settlers. Lettie’s father, grandfather, and older brother are off fighting with a Boer commando. In the camp, deprivations are many and things are especially hard on the young children, many of whom succumb to various diseases. Lettie maintains her spirits by keeping a journal and by recalling her life on the farm, especially going out at night with her grandfather to watch the stars. She also slowly becomes friendly with a British soldier, Tommy Maples, who is sickened by the way his countrymen treat the Boers. He gives her a copy of David Copperfield and introduces Lettie to the solace of great literature. Nothing good, though, can come of this relationship, which ends on an unsurprisingly tragic note. While the author does a convincing job of portraying the cruelty of the British towards their Boer captives, as well as the perspective of the Boer warriors and their kin, there is a certain narrative predictability that prevents the story from landing fully. Lettie, though, in her resilient nature might remind readers of another young South African protagonist, Peekay of Bryce Courtenay’s similarly inspiring The Power of One. (June)

From the Publisher

“The Lost History of Stars is a heart-wrenching yet ultimately uplifting story of an extraordinary young woman and her family, who are forced to endure unimaginable hardship at the hands of a brutal war. Dave Boling’s brilliant novel is a meditation on the resiliency of the soul and the spirit, and will long be remembered.”
—Garth Stein, author of A Sudden Light and The Art of Racing in the Rain
 
“Dave Boling has a rare gift for finding humanity in historical fiction. His new novel, The Lost History of Stars, is another gripping tale about living in war’s barbaric shadow, and how moments of decency and heroism and glimpses of the natural world sustain us.”
—Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins

“If history is written by the victors, this may explain why so little is known about the travails of the Boers, Dutch colonists of South Africa, against the British….The novel sheds much-needed light on the deaths of thousands of Boer civilians in these camps. A valuable testament providing glimmers, however scant, of hope for humanity.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“The author of the award-winning Guernica returns with a compelling story of war, violence, and tragedy . . . Fluctuating from a nostalgic past to a present filled with uncertainty, this story gives a touching and detailed perspective on a cruel war in which children are the innocent victims. This beautifully narrated work will appeal to fans of both historical and general fiction.”
—Library Journal
 
“[Boling’s] informative and illuminating story is heartfelt and deeply affecting in its dramatization of a historic episode too little known here.”
—Booklist

“Centering on the maturation of a relatable protagonist, this well-written work . . . spotlights a military conflict rarely covered in fiction.”
—School Library Journal
 
“Dave Boling's unsparing prose portrays the tragedy of innocents caught in the horrors of war.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Prepare to be immersed in the story. Boling has based his novel on his grandfather’s experience as a camp guard for the British Army during the war. He portrays the women’s strength in dealing with life-and-death struggles and their loss of freedom while trying to provide a home for their family. This story will remain with you long after you have finished the book.”
—Historical Novels Review

Library Journal

05/15/2017
Journalist Boling (Guernica; The Undesirables) tells the harrowing story of 14-year-old Lettie, who is imprisoned with her Dutch Afrikaner family in a brutal British concentration camp during South Africa's Boer War. Boling's personal connection to this story of wartime suffering and perseverance (Boling is the grandson of a Boer War veteran) contributes to this powerful read about a period not often covered in historical fiction. (LJ 4/1/17)

School Library Journal

09/01/2017
In this title set at the turn of the 19th century in South Africa, Grandpa "Oupa" Gideon sneaks Lettie Venter outside at night to study the constellations before he goes away. Soon the Venter women and children, who are Dutch, will watch as the British army burns their farm to the ground and relocates them to a concentration camp while their men fight in the Second Boer War for South African land, diamonds, and gold. Once Lettie shared with her grandfather a dream of becoming a sea captain. "Don't be silly" was his reply. But as 14-year-old Lettie comes of age, the old ways begin to change and being in charge becomes synonymous with growing up female. Although segregation separates Lettie from Bina, a servant and respected member of the family who's sent to a camp for black South Africans, Bina's advice lives on: "Deeds live." Lettie's mother adheres to Bina's counsel initially, teaching her children not to flinch even as a soldier holds his rifle against the neck of her youngest son. While hate consumes Lettie's mother, whose brother-in-law cooperated with the enemy to save his own life, Lettie decides that her deed will be forgiveness. A convincing plot twist unites the family. The novel was based on the story of Boling's grandfather during the war, and the author has dedicated the book to his family. VERDICT Centering on the maturation of a relatable protagonist, this well-written work that spotlights a military conflict rarely covered in fiction is an excellent addition to most collections.—Georgia Christgau, Middle College High School, Long Island City, NY

AUGUST 2017 - AudioFile

This engrossing audiobook animates an often overlooked time in history, and Gemma Dawson’s nimble narration ably maneuvers the story’s nuances. As the Boer War rages, 14-year-old Lettie, her mother, and brother, who are Dutch Afrikaner settlers, are removed from their farm by British soldiers and forced to endure the horrors of a concentration camp. Dawson voices Lettie well, combining the innocence of the character’s age with the strength of her resolve. While Dawson’s skill with accents and voices is considerable—the listener can readily follow the time shifts between grim camp life and the happier memories of the past—there are times when the audio format spotlights gaps or slow sections in the story. Overall, though, this is a solid production, well performed. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2017-03-21
The Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, as witnessed by an adolescent Boer girl.If history is written by the victors, this may explain why so little is known about the travails of the Boers, Dutch colonists of South Africa, against the British. The novel begins when 13-year-old Lettie is turned out of her family's farmhouse along with her mother (known mostly as Moeder), younger sister, Cecelia, and brother, Willem. The farm is burned by British soldiers and the family's livestock is killed; such dispossessions are perpetrated again and again by the British, who aim to displace the Boer farmers to mine their territory for diamonds and gold. The Boer men have all left to fight. The women and children are herded into concentration camps and, in crowded, flimsy tents, are essentially left to starve and die of the diseases that flourish in close, unsanitary quarters. Moeder is incensed at Lettie's beloved aunt, Hannah, who, thanks to her husband Sarel's surrender, is housed in better conditions. The Boer mothers are leery of the camp hospital, resorting instead to folk remedies: these fail to save the life of Cecelia, who wastes away from malnutrition. Risking Moeder's censure, Lettie befriends a young British guard, Maples, who shows her kindness, including giving her a volume of Dickens and a prized potato, which is devoured by Lettie and her tent-mates. Volunteering at the hospital, Lettie works alongside Tante Hannah as a nurse's aide, as does Uncle Sarel, who takes on the grisliest tasks in atonement for his desertion. The novel sheds much-needed light on the deaths of thousands of Boer civilians in these camps. Boling (Guernica, 2008) occasionally lapses into sentimentality and overly reverent portrayals of the Boers as salt-of-the-earth Bible-thumpers, although in one instance Maples reminds Lettie that the Boers drove the Zulus out in order to become peaceable landowners. A valuable testament providing glimmers, however scant, of hope for humanity.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170128518
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	06/06/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

September 1900, Venter Farm

The first warning was so delicate: Moeder’s hanging cups lightly touched lips in the china cabinet. By the time we turned to look at them, stacked plates rattled on the shelves from the vibration of hoofbeats.

“Ma . . . they’re coming,” Willem said, his voice so calm I didn’t believe him. “It’s them.”

“Is it just our men again?”

“Too much dust, it’s them . . . the British.”

“Lettie, take your sister. Willem, turn out the stock. Bina, gather food,” my mother said with rehearsed precision.

“I’ll get your point-two-two,” Willem said, retrieving the rifle my mother kept in her bed on the side where my father had slept before the war. The weapon was almost as tall as my little brother.

The British swept upon us like a grass fire, and by the time we reached the stoep, two dozen soldiers had dismounted; more were pouring into the barn and rounding up stock. Mother had drilled us for this moment every day since the men left almost a year earlier. Her first rule was that the children were not to speak. Not a single word, no matter what the Tommies did. Say nothing, she told us, pointing her finger as if to jab the rule inside us.

“Where are your men?” the officer at the front of the group shouted.

“Out killing British,” I yelled, my silence lasting no more than five seconds.

My mother and the soldiers focused stares on me.

“We know they’ve been here. . . . You’ve been supplying them and that makes you spies,” the officer said. “They destroyed the rail line near here . . .”

“Were many killed?” I asked.

“Lettie . . . shhhh.” Mother turned to me with such force that I feared she’d aim her rifle at me.

“Yes . . . Lettie . . . shhh,” the officer mocked, approaching the stairs. “We’ve been getting sniped at for miles, and you give them support. We could hang you from that tree. All of you.”

I was enraged. They were at our house, with their fat British horses and their knives on the ends of their British rifles. Here . . . in our country, at our house. They were no longer a vague threat, some distant rumbling in the night. They were here, looking into our faces. I stood tall and narrowed my eyes at the officer. The fool. I took a step toward him, sending hatred in my gaze. I am small . . . but dangerous.

“Do you have more to say, little girl?”

Little girl?

I raised both hands above me and shook my fists at him . . . and made a growling noise through my teeth.

The officer laughed. “Will you hurt us with your dolly?”

I had gathered my little sister’s things when the soldiers rode up. I still had Cecelia’s doll, Lollie, in my shaking hand. The British were not threatened.

“Stop laughing at her, rooinek,” Moeder shouted, turning the .22 at the officer.

“Put it down, missus . . . ,” the officer said. “What—”

A pebble bounced off the officer’s shoulder. Willem had fired his slingshot at him from the corner of the stoep.

A dozen soldiers lifted weapons; half aimed at Mother, the others at Willem. Two Tommies twisted at her rifle, a small-caliber shot pinging into the sky before they could wrench it from her.

“We’ll shoot her right now,” the officer said to Willem. “You’ve attacked us with a weapon and she fired a shot. We could hang you all right now. Or put together a firing squad.”

Willem waited, considering . . .

“Put it down, Willem,” Mother said. Willem turned and cocked his head to her. He placed the slingshot on the stoep.

“Bring him here . . .”

He looked so small, a barefoot eight-year-old under a too-large hat, wiggling as two soldiers dragged him by the arms. They stood him in front of the officer, and when they released their grip, Willem straightened into a post.

“Where are the men, boy?”

Silence.

“Where are the men, boy?”

Silence, with a defiant stare.

“You know the penalty for being a spy . . . and for attacking an officer,” he said, signaling for men to come forward. “Firing squad.”

I screamed and Moeder pulled at the soldiers holding her arms. She tore free from one, but another came from behind and coiled an arm around her throat. My mouth dried so quickly that I couldn’t speak. I turned to pick up little Cecelia and shield her eyes.

Five aligned in front of Willem in such a straight line it was clear they had been drilled.

“Stop it, he doesn’t know where they are . . . none of us knows,” Moeder said. “They haven’t been home. . . . They could be anywhere.”

The officer ignored her, focusing on Willem.

“Where are the men, boy?”

Silence.

“Brave officer . . . threatening a little boy,” I said, barely able to raise a sound.

Willem broke his focus on the officer to glare at me.

“It’s no threat. . . . Where are the men?”

Silence.

“Ready . . .”

Moeder twisted again, and the soldier lifted so hard against her neck he squeezed out a choking gasp.

“He doesn’t know,” I said. “They never tell us where they’re going. No, wait, they never come home. They haven’t been home.”

“Aim. . . . Where are the men?” The officer screamed it this time.

Silence.

Soldiers’ rifles angled toward his center, Willem inhaled to expand his chest toward their rifles. He curled his bottom lip over his top.

The tension in my arms pinched Cecelia so tightly she raised a wail, so long and at such a pitch that the officer and the men recoiled from their rigid stance.

“As you were,” the officer said.

The squad lowered weapons.

“Fine boy you have there, ma’am,” the officer said to Moeder. “They usually start crying and tell everything they know the second the squad lines up. He’s the first one to just go mute.” He offered his hand to Willem to shake but withdrew it empty when Willem sneered. “But you’re still spies, and we’re taking you in. You have ten minutes to get what you can from the house.”

Mother spent the first moments staring at the officer, and then at every Tommy who walked past her, studying each man’s face as if memorizing it for later.

Willem and I scrambled into the house to get our bags as two of the soldiers carried our chests and tossed them from the stoep. In the parlor, a soldier started up at mother’s organ, a man at each shoulder. Offended by their nerve, Moeder rushed at them. She was blocked by the men. The Tommy played so well I stopped to listen. His playing was equal to Moeder’s as he read off the sheet music that had been open on the stand. Three sang in ragged harmony as Moeder stood helpless.

Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin, the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.

The singing felt so out of place but struck me as the perfect prayer.

Let me hide myself . . . yes, I thought, please, dear God.
 

Videos