Post-Civil War family drama twists into a tale of suspense
Black characters’ uncertainty feels modern and relevant
It has been eight years since Diane McKinney-Whetstone last published a novel. In that time, the world has changed significantly. We’ve spent nearly two terms with a black president. Technology has changed how many of us consume literature (I read whole novels on my smartphone now). And images of black women in popular culture — namely on television and in film — have multiplied and diversified.
It may seem anachronistic, then, for McKinney-Whetstone, whose previous five novels have told stories about black Philadelphia residents in the 20th century, to return in 2016 with “Lazaretto,” a tale that begins on the night of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. But in fact, this sprawling epic about black women, class stratification, yellow fever, racism and familial bonds that transcend blood feels incredibly daring.
“Lazaretto” opens with a young midwife’s assistant, Sylvia, delivering her first baby. Sylvia, who has been raised upper-middle class, grows up to become a nurse, and along the way, she befriends Nevada, a girl from a poorer, less pretentious part of town. Their sisterhood strengthens them both as they face much different odds and opportunities in life. And though the book follows several narrative threads, one of its strongest themes is how women bolster each other’s survival.
For instance, after Meda, the mother of the first baby Sylvia delivered, is informed that her child has died, she seeks solace in caring for two infant boys at a women-run orphanage. Her relationship with Ann, its manager, is as much of a balm as proximity to babies has been. She’s encouraged to let go of her guilt over having conceived her child with her married white employer, and she’s nursed back from the brink of emotional collapse.
The story spans over 20 years as Meda raises the orphaned infants — Linc, who’s black, and Bram, who’s white — as her own, then loses custody but not her emotional connection to them. Linc and Bram remain closer than blood brothers, lifelong, even as trauma, scandal, manipulation and illness test that bond.
The titular Lazaretto doesn’t enter the story until its second half. The Lazaretto is a real postCivil War location, a quarantine station built in response to the city’s yellow fever epidemic. Sylvia’s nursing ambition takes her there. Nevada takes a job there, in part, to remain close to her. And on a weekend when Sylvia, Nevada, the other black hospital workers and one opiateaddicted white doctor are the only essential staff on call, their old friends from central Philadelphia ferry to the hospital for a wedding between two black employees there.
On the water, one of the ferry’s passengers is shot, making the event as much about triage as matrimony. To make matters worse, the doctor, whose addiction renders him incoherent, has neglected to notice the arrival of a possibly contagious corpse on the shore of the hospital’s land.
“Lazaretto” then transitions from historical family drama to a taut suspense story — and it’s impossible to do it justice without giving away some of its deeply satisfying twists. Suffice it to say, though this story is set in the late 1800s, it feels impressively modern and relevant.
Using the backdrop of Lincoln’s assassination as a starting point seems like a masterfully timed decision, as the black characters in this story contemplate not just the fate of the country but their own fate in the absence of a national leader who appeared — at least on the surface — to invest in their liberty. Reading “Lazaretto” during the last months of Barack Obama’s presidency heightened my connection to the characters’ uncertainty.
It’s also reassuring to know that McKinney-Whetstone’s trademark poetic prose is still as sharp as it has always been. She can make a gruesome turn sound beautiful, and her sentences read as though they were constructed with a painstaking devotion to musicality, without sacrificing plot and pacing. That balance is quite rare to find in contemporary writing — and I couldn’t be happier that McKinney-Whetstone has returned to show us all how it’s done.