What do you think?
Rate this book
The Night Doctor of Richmond
Who was the Night Doctor of Richmond? In 1994, during excavation for a new medical building in downtown Richmond, Virginia, work crews made a macabre discovery, an old well full of skeletons. As it turned out, these were the remains of bodies torn from Black cemeteries in the 19th Century and used as anatomical specimens by students at the Medical College of Virginia. While archeologists disinterred some of the bones for study, researchers at the college revealed the man responsible for many of the medical school's transgressions, an employee named Chris Baker, who had by his own admission robbed hundreds of graves during his career.
Baker was notorious in his time, featured regularly on the front pages of local newspapers, which called him a ghoul, a conjure man, a suspected murderer and even a cannibal. Reviled by the Black community, he was hounded, jailed, beaten and shot, finding shelter inside the basement of MCV’s old Egyptian Building, where he prepared and disposed of cadavers. To the medical community, however, Baker was a respected essential worker, his efforts key to the teaching of future doctors.
As he plied his macabre trade, Baker walked a tightrope along the fraught racial lines of his time. In this deeply researched and richly imagined biographical novel, enter the world of Chris Baker, the night doctor of Richmond.
Baker was notorious in his time, featured regularly on the front pages of local newspapers, which called him a ghoul, a conjure man, a suspected murderer and even a cannibal. Reviled by the Black community, he was hounded, jailed, beaten and shot, finding shelter inside the basement of MCV’s old Egyptian Building, where he prepared and disposed of cadavers. To the medical community, however, Baker was a respected essential worker, his efforts key to the teaching of future doctors.
As he plied his macabre trade, Baker walked a tightrope along the fraught racial lines of his time. In this deeply researched and richly imagined biographical novel, enter the world of Chris Baker, the night doctor of Richmond.
- GenresNonfiction
268 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 6, 2024
About the author
Tony Gentry
7 books4 followersTony Gentry is the author of three novels: Covenant City, a dystopian near-future tale; The Night Doctor of Richmond, about the city's notorious 19th Century body snatcher Chris Baker; and the Charlottesville-based family drama The Coal Tower.
Other books include a story collection Last Rites, a poetry collection Yearnful Raves, a book of family history WWII Mortarman: My Father's Service with the 99th Chemical Mortar Battalion, and five young adult biographies (Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice Walker, Jesse Owens, Dizzy Gillespie, and Elvis Presley).
Tony is also professor emeritus in occupational therapy at Virginia Commonwealth University. He lives in Bon Air, Virginia and blogs at tonygentry.com.
Other books include a story collection Last Rites, a poetry collection Yearnful Raves, a book of family history WWII Mortarman: My Father's Service with the 99th Chemical Mortar Battalion, and five young adult biographies (Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice Walker, Jesse Owens, Dizzy Gillespie, and Elvis Presley).
Tony is also professor emeritus in occupational therapy at Virginia Commonwealth University. He lives in Bon Air, Virginia and blogs at tonygentry.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 6, 2026
Cringeworthy, Haunting, Mesmerizing, Enlightening –
an Expose on What Medical Research Requires
Author Tony Gentry introduces Chris Baker, the child of an enslaved grave-robber and
anatomical expert, and artfully engages all our senses through vivid scenes of Baker’s daily
struggle with what he knows, what he must do, and how he must do it in a world that rejects
him at every corner. Charged with finding bodies for doctors and students to study, this young
man seems physically super-human (existing on naps, not sleep; working night and day, digging
up graves in frozen earth), insanely smart and diabolical all at once. While people recoil or
abuse him all his life, he does, in the end, receive a modicum of recognition and respect; but to
see and feel the lifelong abuse he endured, to smell the stench he grew so accustomed to that
fresh air made him swoon, to touch and breathe the chemicals used to strip the bones in his
care, is to wonder how he stood so calmly beside upper-class white doctors who met and
carved into his stolen cadavers with such ease and societal admiration.
“The Night Doctor of Richmond” is a masterpiece of storytelling rife with Stephen King level
creepiness made visceral in the knowledge that this story truly happened. The black and white
book cover of Baker at a desk with a skull and bones alone speaks volumes in its portrayal of
our primal fear of death and the black and white nature of our national shame —the shame of
slavery and the way slaves were used to commit illegal acts for the advancement of upper-class
white professionals. In the photo, Baker’s guarded eyes gaze sideways as if sensing a dangerous
apparition nearby. But the ghosts are not something he imagines – they are his fellow humans,
watching him, judging him, stalking him; the danger he senses is real; it’s the result of the only
trade he has been trained to do, and his reward is a dungeon-like existence.
The magic of this book is that we come to realize that the reviled night doctor is a doctor. Chris
Baker is a doctor and a scientist deserving of our respect.
While we know that medicine requires the study of the human body, living through what that
entails is something entirely different. As we demand and enjoy the surgical miracles that
doctors perform every day, let us not forget what has enabled these life-saving and life-
changing procedures to exist. Let us not forget the sacrifice and heartache of those who have
made modern cures a reality.
an Expose on What Medical Research Requires
Author Tony Gentry introduces Chris Baker, the child of an enslaved grave-robber and
anatomical expert, and artfully engages all our senses through vivid scenes of Baker’s daily
struggle with what he knows, what he must do, and how he must do it in a world that rejects
him at every corner. Charged with finding bodies for doctors and students to study, this young
man seems physically super-human (existing on naps, not sleep; working night and day, digging
up graves in frozen earth), insanely smart and diabolical all at once. While people recoil or
abuse him all his life, he does, in the end, receive a modicum of recognition and respect; but to
see and feel the lifelong abuse he endured, to smell the stench he grew so accustomed to that
fresh air made him swoon, to touch and breathe the chemicals used to strip the bones in his
care, is to wonder how he stood so calmly beside upper-class white doctors who met and
carved into his stolen cadavers with such ease and societal admiration.
“The Night Doctor of Richmond” is a masterpiece of storytelling rife with Stephen King level
creepiness made visceral in the knowledge that this story truly happened. The black and white
book cover of Baker at a desk with a skull and bones alone speaks volumes in its portrayal of
our primal fear of death and the black and white nature of our national shame —the shame of
slavery and the way slaves were used to commit illegal acts for the advancement of upper-class
white professionals. In the photo, Baker’s guarded eyes gaze sideways as if sensing a dangerous
apparition nearby. But the ghosts are not something he imagines – they are his fellow humans,
watching him, judging him, stalking him; the danger he senses is real; it’s the result of the only
trade he has been trained to do, and his reward is a dungeon-like existence.
The magic of this book is that we come to realize that the reviled night doctor is a doctor. Chris
Baker is a doctor and a scientist deserving of our respect.
While we know that medicine requires the study of the human body, living through what that
entails is something entirely different. As we demand and enjoy the surgical miracles that
doctors perform every day, let us not forget what has enabled these life-saving and life-
changing procedures to exist. Let us not forget the sacrifice and heartache of those who have
made modern cures a reality.
April 2, 2025
This book is not for everyone, but it definitely was for me. Gentry takes on the underbelly of the nineteenth century medical world, taking us through the journey of the "night doctor", the man who inherited the job of procuring cadavers for medical schools not only in his home city of Richmond, VA, but up and down the East Coast for nearly sixty years. It's a story of Black/White and slavery-to-emancipation, but mostly it's about the challenging life of someone who society depends on yet is so revulsed by that they will have nothing to do with. I also took away a better understanding of why some of our burial rituals are what they are. I've loaned or given this book to a number of friends and family members who have ties either to Richmond, or to medicine, or both. Most report to me being just as riveted as I was, grateful to have encountered this book. One or two reported being enthralled yet unable to hang in through the dark topic.
March 15, 2025
Very interesting historical recap as well as a wonderful mix of imaginative details! Great Richmond deep dive! I loved how Tony gets you into the story and keeps you wanting to know more! Nicely done!
December 23, 2024
Really enjoyed reading this book. Crazy history - my heart goes out to Chris and his family - wow!
January 20, 2026
I grew up about 20 minutes south of Richmond, worked in Shockoe Bottom for about a decade, and I never knew about Chris Baker. What a fascinating story!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews