Honestly, I can't imagine a better tale.
A detective story this's at one time mythically large and painfully intimate.
Just the neat facts are hard to think: this in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor this killed her--taken not including her knowledge or consent--exist on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern technology--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). All of which is to say: the technology end of this story is enough to blow one's intellect right out of one's face.
But what's truly remarkable concerning Rebecca Skloot's book is this we in addition get the rest of the story, the part this could have effortlessly remained concealed had she not spent ten years unearthing it: Who was Henrietta Lacks? How did she exist? How she did die? Did her family recognize this she'd become, in some sense, immortal, and how did this affect them? These are crucial questions, for the reason that technology should never not recall the people who gave it life. And so, what unfolds is not only a reporting tour de force but in addition a very entertaining account of Henrietta, her ancestors, her cells and the scientists who grew them.
The book ultimately channels its journey of discovery though Henrietta's youngest daughter, Deborah, who never knew her mother, and who dreamt of one day being a scientist.
As Deborah Lacks and Skloot search for answers, we're bounced effortlessly from the tiny tobacco-farming Virginia hamlet of Henrietta's childhood to modern-day Baltimore, where Henrietta's family remains. Along the way, a series of unforgettable juxtapositions: cell culturing bumps into faith healings, cutting edge medicine collides together with the dark truth this Henrietta's family can't manage to pay for the health insurance to care for diseases their mother's cells have helped to cure.
Rebecca Skloot tells the story together with excellent sensitivity, urgency and, in the end, damn fine writing. I highly recommend this book. --Jad Abumrad
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