Angel of Harlem
Subtitle: a novel based on the life of Dr. May Chinn
By: Kuwana Haulsey.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: One World/Ballantine Books
Published: 2004
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 340
Subjects: Chinn, May Edward, 1896- -- Fiction.; African American women physicians -- Fiction.; Women physicians -- Fiction.; Harlem (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction.
Genres: Fiction.
Description: "Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn's life, Angel of Harlem is a story of love and transcendence. Weaving together scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine." "A gifted, beautiful young woman in the 1920s, May Edward Chinn dreams only of music. For years she accompanies the famed singer Paul Robeson. However, a racist professor ends her hopes of becoming a concert pianist. But from one dashed dream blooms another: May would become a doctor instead - the first black female physician in Harlem." "Giddy with the wonder of the Harlem Renaissance and fueled by firebrand friends including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, May doggedly pursues her ambitions while striving to overcome the pains of her past: the death of a fiance, a lost child, and a distant father ravaged by the legacy of slavery. With every grief she encounters, a resilient piece of herself locks into place. At times risking her life - attending to men stabbed in their homes and women left to die in filthy alleys - May struggles to carve out a place for herself within a medical world that still teaches that a "Negro" brain is not anatomically wired for higher thinking."--BOOK JACKET.