The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

I first heard about this story on an episode of Radiolab last year. It was a fascinating and moving episode, with Radiolab's characteristic blending of science and human narrative and philosophical inquiry, and so when I started seeing the book pop up in bookstores and reviews, I filed it away as something I thought I'd like to read eventually.

Eventually finally came last week. I've been reading a lot of book recommendations and gifts and book club books lately, and while I love getting book recommendations and gifts and being in a book club, I was feeling the need to drop it all for a moment and lose myself in something I had chosen.

And boy did I lose myself. I finished the book in less than a week, not because I had lots of time on my hands (which I kind of did once I got past the weekend), but because I haven't been this drawn into a book for a very long time.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor black woman who, in the early 1950s, was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Cells that were removed from her tumor at Johns Hopkins were found to be incredibly robust. They multiplied like no other human cells that had been seen, and produced a virtually immortal cell line, nicknamed HeLa, that has contributed to countless advances in science and medicine. But the story of the cells is only a very small part of this book. The story is about Henrietta herself, who for years remained virtually unknown while her cells gained fame and notoriety. And it's the story of her family, particularly her children, who barely knew their mother and knew nothing of what had been done to her cells. When the knowledge finally reached them, it shook them deeply, particularly her daughter Deborah who wanted more than anything to know her mother and to understand what the fame and proliferation of her mother's cells meant for her mother and for her family and for herself. The story is about the ethics of research on humans, and about it's about history and race and poverty and culture. It's fascinating and occasionally uncomfortable and heartbreaking and hopeful.

The book was absolutely enthralling. There's a point in the book where Rebecca Skloot tells of a conversation she had with Deborah in which Deborah told her that she wanted everything to be known about her family and their story, the good and the bad, and that's exactly what we get. Rebecca herself, though she is a primary character in the quest to know the family and know their story and the story of the cells, fades into the background, and paints a very honest picture with detailed prose and candid dialogue and carefully research and an incredible breadth of scope. It's sometimes borders on uncomfortable, and yet is very respectfully told.

I loved this book. I felt emotionally bound up in it almost from the first page to the last, and it's a book I feel will stay with me for a long time.