The book weaves together four stories.
One is the story of a woman named Henrietta, who loved to paint her toenails red and go out dancing, who loved her children dearly, who was poor, and black, and died of cancer in 1951.
One is the story of what happened to a sample of cells taken from Henrietta's cancerous tumor, and how this HeLa line of cells, with its extraordinary robustness, was used, and is still used, to make many marvellous advances in medicine and the study of cell biology. The first great contribution Henrietta's cells made were in the development of the polio vaccine, but the list goes on and on and on.
The third is the story of the dark side of medical practice in the mid twentieth century, and how the black, the poor, the incarcerated, and the marginalized suffered at the hands of medical research.
And the fourth is the story of Henrietta's children, especially her daughter Deborah. It was years before they learned that part of their mother was immortal--that her living cells had been bought and sold for the cause of medical research, while they struggled with poverty and inadequate health insurance. To learn that part of their mother, who Deborah never knew, was still alive, brought heartache, confusion, and anger.
Into their lives comes Rebecca Skloot, a white woman determined to make the story of HeLa the story of people. It is a difficult journey for Deborah and for Rebecca. This book, weaving the four stories together in a utterly readable, mesmerizing, shattering, and poignant way, is the result.
Read it (if you haven't already).
And then read this op ed piece in the New York Times from 2013 that continues the story. (or you could read the op ed piece now).
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