The time period in which this novel is set and the city of Philadelphia itself are as much characters as any of the people in this novel.
Is there anything about the setting that readers should be thinking about as they read the book? “Tumbling” takes place in Philadelphia in the 1940s and 1950s. It’s a novel about how a family can be made in the most unexpected way and there are so many secrets that unfold so elegantly over the course of the novel. I first read “Tumbling” in my 20s, and the book has stayed with me for 20 years-Herbie and Noon and how they tried so hard to love each other and protect each other while being imperfect people. Why did you select Diane McKinney-Whetstone’s novel “Tumbling”? Gay will publish “Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body,” about her relationship with food. ‘Tumbling,’ published in 1996, was Diane McKinney-Whetstone’s debut novel.
