Timing Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to launch into their destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over. –Gloria Naylor. The community of Linden Hill is beholden to its address, but all citizens of The Hills are beholden only to themselves. Throughout the novel we meet characters with the intention of mastering the art of the self. Timing is everything on the hill; a time to plot, a time to plot, and a time to kill is the perfect way to let go and “allow people to launch into their destiny.” (Naylor). Most of the characters seem to create their own destiny. It seems that all Nedeed men have had their destiny down to a science. Calculating everything up to the moment the children were conceived. The Nedeeds have never left anything by chance/faith. Everything happened exactly as planned. Winning has always been in their favor and losing has never been an option; by any means. In Naylor's second novel, Linden Hills, the chapters were set as dates leading up to Christmas; it all leads to “mastering the art of timing.” the now fifth-generation Luther, an undertaker and real estate developer who presides over an unwelcoming and embittered community of fellow African Americans who redeem their souls for material gain. The novel ends with the escape of Luther's wife from the basement where she had been locked up. Holmes then states: The elasticity of the genre of the sentimental novel, which can incorporate the subgroups of the seduction novel and the prison tale, allows for an aesthetic interpretation of Linden Hills that brings together a material