New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nurse shortage. So begins the remarkable true story of the Black nurses who helped cure tuberculosis, one of the world's deadliest plagues, told alongside the often strange chronicle of the cure's discovery. SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE 2024 'A tour de force' PEN 'Gripping' New York Times 'Wonderfully told . . . an invaluable restoration of another of history's racially biased omissions' Diana Evans 'Their triumphant story has until now been almost completely neglected' The Bookseller 'Informative, enthralling, and sometimes appalling, this is history at its best' Booklist During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed 1 in 7 people, white nurses at Sea View, New York's largest municipal hospital, began quitting. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a career, and an escape from the strictures of
