Category: History

Once upon a time there was a story that needed to be told.  It is about something we all need to be aware of, yet few of us are aware.  It begins with cells and with a poor, Southern woman named Henrietta Lacks who died at age 30 and is buried in an unmarked grave.

But what it really goes back to is this question:  who do our bodies belong to?  Whether you believe in God, an afterlife, and souls (or not) when Science hits on a certain discovery it sometimes makes claims–or stakes claims–on things that can further research.  Does it have that right?

Henrietta was dying of cervical cancer and being treated at Johns Hopkins when her doctor took a sample of her cells and gave them to George Gey, a researcher at the hospital who was working on cell growth and duplication outside of the human body.  No patient consent was asked for or given.  No family consent was asked for or given.  After all, Henrietta was getting free medical care, and the hospital’s rationale was that, in exchange for that care, they could bypass asking for permission.  They had done it with other patients and this time was no different.

But Henrietta’s cells were different.  After multiple failures trying to duplicate cells artificially, George Guy was suddenly handed the scientific version of the goose that laid the golden egg.  Except in this case, there were billions of golden eggs, because Henrietta’s cells multiplied again and again…and again and again.

She died, unceremoniously, leaving 5 children and a husband behind, but her cells lived on, and live on to this day in labs around the world.  Renamed HeLa cells, their relentless fortitude in continuing to multiply has made them instrumental in some of medicine’s most important research.

Fast forward several decades when the author, Rebecca Skloot, a too-smart-for-her-own-good student who constantly challenged the conventional school system, was sitting in a science class at a local community college.  After teaching a brief lesson on the HeLa cells, the professor wrote Henrietta’s name on the blackboard.  A spark and questions began to emerge in Rebecca’s mind, as did a quest to find out more about this unsuspecting woman who had given so much.

There are some people who are born to write a certain book and tell a certain story.  Henrietta’s story was waiting for Rebecca Skloot to come along and pursue the multiple avenues required to do it justice.  What she didn’t know was that Henrietta’s children had been used, lied to, and taken advantage of so much over the years, that the last thing they wanted to do was trust a young white woman inquiring about their mother’s cells.  Just gaining their trust took years.  All they knew was that Johns Hopkins and many others had capitalized and profited off of them, and they had nothing.  They didn’t even have health insurance.

There is much, much more to this story, and what you will realize as you read is that the author’s and Henrietta’s children’s stories merge together during the decade of research it took to write this book.  There are parts that are difficult to read–both Henrietta and her children grew up with abuse, abandonment, and incredible poverty–a recipe for extreme hardship that affected generations of the Lacks family.

But the story also contains discovery, redemption, apologies, allegiance, ethics, and friendship. Henrietta, her children, the researchers, and the author all have their own journeys, and the lessons learned–for them and for the reader–are the kind that stay with you.

I highly recommend this book.  It will make you question and be grateful for many things.

9 stars out of 10

I don’t know if our fascination with Russia will ever diminish, partly because the culture, government, and history are so different from that of the US.  And it is this fascination, plus a job offer and the desire to investigate his family history, that motivated Nicholas Daniloff to move his family there in the late 1970’s.

Yet, despite knowing the language, the quirks of living in a country under the umbrella of so much mistrust, and being familiar with the experiences of other journalists who had been detained by the KGB, Daniloff himself was arrested just days before he and his wife were set to move back to the States.

Imagine–I don’t think we can–being nervous about forming new relationships for fear of the person being a KGB agent. Imagine having to save personal discussions for out on the balcony because of KGB microphones in your apartment.  Imagine using code words on the phone to avoid suspicion–even when you are doing nothing wrong.  This is what life was like.  Mistrust, fear, and deprivation. Deprivation of basic needs, information, and access to the rest of the world.

The “two lives” referred to in the book are the author’s and his great-great grandfather, a military leader at the time of the Decemberist movement.  Nicholas Daniloff has a unique ring that belonged to his ancestor, and the chapters switch back and forth between the events surrounding his arrest and his research into his great-great grandfather’s life and military service.

I found myself deeply fascinated with the chapters dealing with his imprisonment and endless interrogations.  The stress he underwent as he was accused of being a spy and handling illegal documents must have been terrible.  My attention waned during the other chapters.  There were too many tangents, too many names to remember, and too many branches of explanations.

If the entire book had dealt with his arrest, with only minor references to his ancestor, I think I would’ve been a lot more interested.  But I do understand the author’s need to draw parallels between his 2 week ordeal and the ten-year imprisonment his great-great grandfather endured.  Their experiences were not entirely alike, but it made the author feel closer to him, which is a trait many of us have to family members we hardly knew.

7.5 Stars out of 10

While waiting for Downton Abbey’s third season to begin in January, I have been enjoying a new BBC series, Call the Midwife.  It is based on the memoirs of a midwife named Jennifer Worth, and so I also began reading her book.

Jennifer Worth, who was “Jenny Lee” before she married, worked in London’s East End during the late 1950’s.  She and other young single midwives lived in a convent called Nonnatus House, side by side with a handful of nuns who also worked as midwives, ran a clinic for the expectant mothers in the area, and helped the young women like Jenny Lee complete their training by giving them field experience.

The East End was comprised of slums and tenement housing.  Unwashed children ran through the streets.  Houses of prostitution was commonplace.  Families usually squeezed into one or two rooms.  But with England’s socialized medicine, prenatal and antenatal care was available to everyone, regardless of their financial situation.  The nuns and young midwives were kept very busy.

Despite its whimsical cover, this book is not for the squeamish. But it is not gratuitously graphic either.  Most chapters deal with different birthing experiences that Jenny was in charge of, assisted in, or witnessed.  The East End’s poverty level brought its own set of challenges in many of these experiences, such as lack of sanitation in people’s homes, lack of electricity or phones for calling the doctor, or pre-existing illnesses in laboring mothers.

But this is not a story full of depressed people in depressed circumstances.  The author shows her awe and respect for the East Enders’ resilience despite those circumstances.  If you visit my other blog, Improvise the Harmony, and read the post called Happy =), it explains that, as long as people’s basic needs are met, they have the same capacity for happiness as someone who is much wealthier.  This memoir is a testament to that fact.

If you have been watching the series, you will recognize that some episodes have been completely lifted from the book.  But there are plenty that are not.  The book also gives us more insight into the regular cast of characters–who are based on real people–such as the other young midwives and nuns at the convent.

There is one chapter that made me squirm a bit, that was graphic in another way.  The chapter entitled “Cable Street.”  This chapter has, unfortunately, given me reason not to suggest the book to my book club.  It is a shame, too, because the rest of the memoir is delightful.  Despite this chapter, I do recommend the book.  Jennifer Worth’s writing style is the perfect balance of reporting and descriptive, and it is never boring.  It is one of those “slice of life” books that takes you to another place in another time.  The fact that everything in it really happened makes it all the more interesting.

8.5/10 Stars