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Diane McKinney-Whetstone s nationally bestselling novel, Tumbling, immersed us into Philadelphia s black community during the Civil Rights era, and she returns to the city in this new historical novel about a cast of nineteenth-century characters whose colorful lives intersect at the legendary Lazaretto America s first quarantine hospital.Isolated on an island where two rivers meet, the Lazaretto quarantine hospital is the first stop for immigrants who wish to begin new lives in Philadelphia. The Lazaretto s black live-in staff forge a strong social community, and when one of them receives permission to get married on the island the mood is one of celebration, particularly since the white staff save the opium-addicted doctor are given leave for the weekend.