Even though they are nothing alike in terms of characters or plot, Lazaretto, by Diane McKinney-Whitestone, strongly reminded me of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale structurally. I realize this is an odd thing to lead with in a book review, but understanding the structure is important for understanding this book. In the first half of Lazaretto, plot elements are tossed into the pot and allowed to marinate for a very long time. The second half takes place twenty some-odd years later when everything comes to a boil*. The novel tells the stories of Meda and Sylvia and their unofficially adopted children in Philadelphia between 1865 and the 1880s. There are lies, kidnappings, tangled lineages, colorism, and lots of racial tension.
Meda and Sylvia meet at the beginning of Lazaretto in very unusual circumstances. Sylvia is assisting one of the rare African American midwives in Philadelphia on an April day in 1865 when Meda arrives with her white employer. The employer is dismayed to learn that not only is Meda too far along for an abortion, but she is also about to give birth to their child. Sylvia delivers the baby, who is promptly stolen by Meda’s employer. Shortly thereafter, Meda starts to work part time at an orphanage, where she nurses and helps raise two boys who were infants in April 1965. Meanwhile, Sylvia advances her medical education and career while also keeping an eye on her niece, Vergie.
The first half of Lazaretto slows after the excitement of its opening. Years pass as Meda and her boys, Bram and Linc, age and while Sylvia and Vergie keep bumping into barriers. Sylvia is constantly prevented from taking high paying jobs in hospitals because she’s black. Vergie, who is very light-skinned but proud of her African American heritage, is frequently mistaken for white and is exposed to all kinds of racist talk. At times, Bram, Linc, and Meda’s stories diverge widely from Sylvia and Vergie’s. I wasn’t sure how everything was going to come together.
The plots all come together with a bang in part two, where Bram, Linc, Sylvia, and Vergie all end up at a wedding party at the quarantine hospital, the Philadelphia Lazaretto. From that point on the plot races. If it were funnier, I would say that the second half is a farce as characters chase, threaten, and fight each other for hours on end. Everything comes out into the open in the second half and I found it much more satisfying than the first.
After finishing Lazaretto, I’m left with a lot of thoughts about bloodlines. Not knowing who one’s parents are or having dark-skinned people in one’s family are marks of shame to many of the characters in this novel. Racism from whites is a given, but this novel presents something new in how some African Americans in the north at that time looked down on people with more melanin than they had. Skin color mattered because lighter skinned people had a better chance of passing or at least avoiding the epithets and violence hurled at darker skinned members of the community. It’s appalling to see this effect of racism, which psychologically twisted African Americans who wanted to get ahead economically and socially.
On the one hand, McKinney-Whitestone was deft in her portrayals of Media, Sylvia, and the cast of Lazaretto. On the other, I don’t like the structure. I completely understand why the book is written the way it is. Part two wouldn’t have worked near as well without all the background of part one. And yet, the first half is so slow compared to the frenetic second part and there are such long periods of time that are glossed over, that I wondered if perhaps the entire plot needed to be taken apart and replanned. Lazaretto is a curious, but interesting, piece of fiction.
* How’s that for a metaphor?