Reviews
"One of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I've read in a very long time 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' floods over you like a narrative dam break, as if someone had managed to distill and purify the more addictive qualities of 'Erin Brockovich,' 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' and 'The Andromeda Strain.' it feels like the book Ms. Skloot was born to write. It signals the arrival of a raw but quite real talent."-Dwight Garner, The New York Times "Skloot's vivid account begins with the life of Henrietta Lacks, who comes fully alive on the page 'Immortal Life' reads like a novel."--Eric Roston, The Washington Post "Gripping, by turns heartbreaking, funny and unsettling, raises troubling questions about the way Mrs. Lacks and her family were treated by researchers and about whether patients should control or have financial claims on tissue removed from their bodies."-Denise Grady, New York Times "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is a fascinating read and a ringing success. It is a well-written, carefully-researched, complex saga of medical research, bioethics, and race in America. Above all it is a human story of redemption for a family, torn by loss, and for a writer with a vision that would not let go."-Douglas Whynott, The Boston Globe "Riveting...raises important questions about medical ethics...It's an amazing story...Deeply chilling... Whether those uncountable HeLa cells are a miracle or a violation, Skloot tells their fascinating story at last with skill, insight and compassion" -Colette Bancroft, St. Petersburg Times "The history of HeLa is a rare and powerful combination of race, class, gender, medicine, bioethics, and intellectual property; far more rare is the writer than can so clearly fuse those disparate threads into a personal story so rich and compelling. Rebecca Skloot has crafted a unique piece of science journalism that is impossible to put down-or to forget."- Seed magazine "No one can say exactly where Henrietta Lacks is buried: during the many years Rebecca Skloot spent working on this book, even Lacks' hometown of Clover, Virginia, disappeared. But that did not stop Skloot in her quest to exhume, and resurrect, the story of her heroine and her family. What this important, invigorating book lays bare is how easily science can do wrong, especially to the poor. The issues evoked here are giant: who owns our bodies, the use and misuse of medical authority, the unhealed wounds of slavery ... and Skloot, with clarity and compassion, helps us take the long view. This is exactly the sort of story that books were made to tell-thorough, detailed, quietly passionate, and full of revelation."-TED CONOVER, author of Newjack and The Routes of Man "It's extremely rare when a reporter's passion finds its match in a story. Rarer still when the people in that story courageously join that reporter in the search for what we most need to know about ourselves. When this occurs with a moral journalist who is also a true writer, a human being with a heart capable of holding all of life's damage and joy, the stars have aligned. This is an extraordinary gift of a book, beautiful and devastating-a work of outstanding literary reportage. Read it! It's the best you will find in many many years."-ADRIAN NICOLE LEBLANC, author of Random Family " The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks brings to mind the work of Philip K. Dick and Edgar Allan Poe. But this tale is true. Rebecca Skloot explores the racism and greed, the idealism and faith in science that helped to save thousands of lives but nearly destroyed a family. This is an extraordinary book, haunt, "No one can say exactly where Henrietta Lacks is buried: during the many years Rebecca Skloot spent working on this book, even Lacks's hometown of Clover, Virginia, disappeared. But that did not stop Skloot in her quest to exhume, and resurrect, the story of her heroine and her family. What this important, invigorating book lays bare is how easily science can do wrong, especially to the poor. The issues evoked here are giant: who owns our bodies, the use and misuse of medical authority, the unhealed wounds of slavery ... and Skloot, with clarity and compassion, helps us take the long view. This is exactly the sort of story that books were made to tell-thorough, detailed, quietly passionate, and full of revelation."-TED CONOVER, author of Newjack and The Routes of Man "It's extremely rare when a reporter's passion finds its match in a story. Rarer still when the people in that story courageously join that reporter in the search for what we most need to know about ourselves. When this occurs with a moral journalist who is also a true writer, a human being with a heart capable of holding all of life's damage and joy, the stars have aligned. This is an extraordinary gift of a book, beautiful and devastating-a work of outstanding literary reportage. Read it! It's the best you will find in many many years."-ADRIAN NICOLE LEBLANC, author ofRandom Family "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksbrings to mind the work of Philip K. Dick and Edgar Allan Poe. But this tale is true. Rebecca Skloot explores the racism and greed, the idealism and faith in science that helped to save thousands of lives but nearly destroyed a family. This is an extraordinary book, haunting and beautifully told."-ERIC SCHLOSSER, author ofFast Food Nation "Skloot's book is wonderful -- deeply felt, gracefully written, sharply reported. It is a story about science but, much more, about life."-SUSAN ORLEAN, author ofThe Orchid Thief "This is a science biography like the world has never seen. What if one of the great American women of modern science and medicine--whose contribution underlay historic discoveries in genetics, the treatment and prevention of disease, reproduction, and the unraveling of the human genome--was a self-effacing African-American tobacco farmer from the Deep South? A devoted mother of five who was escorted briskly to the Jim Crow section of Johns Hopkins for her cancer treatments? What if the untold millions of scientists, doctors, and patients enriched and healed by her gift never, to this day, knew her name? What if her contribution was made without her knowledge or permission? Ladies and gentlemen, meet Henrietta Lacks. Chances are, at the level of your DNA, your inoculations, your physical health and microscopic well-being, you've already been introduced."--MELISSA FAY GREENE, author of Praying for Sheetrockand There Is No Me Without You "Heartbreaking and powerful, unsettling yet compelling,The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksis a richly textured story of the hidden costs of scientific progress. Deftly weaving together history, journalism and biography, Rebecca Skloot's sensitive account tells of the enduring, deeply personal sacrifice of this African American woman and her family and, at long last, restores a human face to the cell line that propelled 20th century biomedicine. A stunning illustration of how race, gender and disease intersect to produce a unique form of social vulnerability, this is a poignant, necessary and brilliant book."-ALONDRA NELSON, Columbia University; editor ofTechnicolor: Race, Technology and Everyday Life
