In perhaps her most ambitious novel to date, Diane McKinney-Whetstone transports the reader to Philadelphia in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, and to the area's quarantine hospital, the Lazaretto. She moves seamlessly from the secret rooms of a noted midwife, to a struggling orphanage for indigent white boys; from the homes of Philadelphia’s well-to-do black families, to back-street gambling parlors. She intertwines the fates of orphan brothers—one brother commits a violent … Read More
Diane McKinney-Whetstone is the author of six novels. The latest—Lazaretto—was published April 12, 2016, as her first novel, the critically-acclaimed Tumbling celebrated twenty years. She mines the city of Philadelphia for her material. The blocks and neighborhoods themselves become characters as she tells stories of everyday people existing in families and communities; characters faltering, yielding to their desires, falling, fighting, climbing, reaching for their better selves. Twice awarded the American Library Association Black Caucus Literary Award for Fiction, she is also a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant. She is a past lecturer in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives with her husband Greg in Philadelphia.
