This stunning new novel from Diane McKinney-Whetstone, national bestselling author of Tumbling, begins in the chaotic backstreets of post— Civil War Philadelphia as a young black woman gives birth to a child fathered by her wealthy white employer.
In a city riven by racial tension, the father’ s transgression is unforgivable. He arranges to take the baby, so it falls to Sylvia, the midwife’ s teenage apprentice, to tell the mother, Meda, that her child is dead— a lie that will define the course of both women’ s lives. A devastated Meda dedicates herself to working in an orphanage and becomes a surrogate mother to two white boys; while Sylvia, fueled by her guilt, throws herself into her nursing studies and finds a post at the Lazaretto, the country’ s first quarantine hospital, situated near the Delaware River, just south of Philadelphia.
The Lazaretto is a crucible of life and death; sick passengers and corpses are quarantined here, but this is also the place where immigrants take their first steps toward the American dream. The live-in staff are mostly black Philadelphians, and when two of them arrange to marry, the city’ s black community prepares for a party on its grounds. But the celebration is plunged into chaos when gunshots ring out across the river.
As Sylvia races to save the victim, the fates of Meda’ s beloved orphans also converge on the Lazaretto. Here conflicts escalate, lies collapse, and secrets begin to surface. Like dead men rising, past sins cannot be contained.
