Teenage Alex Gambier, outcast and scarred from a childhood tragedy and mute from an early bout of diphtheria, conceives daredevil stunts that threaten his life and place him in the care of young nurse Mally Shaw.

"During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed one in seven 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 Jim Crow. But after arriving, they found themselves on an isolated hilltop in the remote borough of Staten Island,...