Part of my nightly wind-down ritual involves reading for an hour before I go to sleep, so I'm always on the lookout for a good book. Lately though, I've felt unsatisfied by many of the popular selections I've read, despite their alleged "New York Times bestseller" status or their "noteworthy fiction" recommendation at B&N.
Luckily, I finally hit the jackpot twice in a row with these two books:
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
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I'd almost bought The Help several times, but a character named Skeeter (described in the jacket lead-in) made me wary; I tend to cringe at cutesy character names, and often find them a stumbling block. But finally, one desperate-for-a-book day, I actually sat and read a few pages (bright idea!) and was immediately hooked.
The story takes place in fictionalized Jackson, Mississippi beginning in 1962 and is told from the perspectives two black household maids and a young white woman who aspires to be a writer, as they eventually join in a risky project to shed light on the lives of domestic employers and employees at that time.
The Help is not a flawless book by any means; the author has been criticized for needlessly rearranging actual events of the 60's to suit her story's timeline, and she has been criticized for her inconsistent and (some say) inappropriate/unflattering use of dialect in her portrayal of the maids. Both are legitimate criticisms, in my opinion.
Ultimately for me though, the story was well told; the characters were engaging and the story wrenching in its depiction of the unjust and inhumane treatment of black Americans that persisted through much of my own childhood. As an adult revisiting the early 60's through this story, I'm amazed at how little I understood of this era as a child living through it. It seems like that America should have been much longer ago than the first decade of my lifetime.
* * *
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a true story, likewise tells a tale from a racially segregated America that seems distant, yet isn't. Henrietta Lacks was a 30 year old African American mother of five who died in 1951 from an aggressive form of cervical cancer. Before her death, and without her knowledge or consent, her tumor cells were used (with apparent good intent) by Johns Hopkins researchers. Hers became the first human cells to reproduce and thrive in laboratory settings, generating an ongoing or "immortal" source of research cells known as HeLa. The HeLa cells have provided the basis for numerous medical breakthroughs from polio vaccines to gene-mapping to cancer and HIV treatments, and they continue in use today.
Henrietta's family, especially her daughter Deborah, join the author in the emotionally difficult, years-long process of discovering the almost-lost story of Henrietta's life and the details of her unplanned yet incalculable contribution to modern medical science.
This book raises many questions about biomedical ethics and the rights of individuals to control and/or be compensated for the use of their removed tissue for medical research. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine that Henrietta would not have been glad for the miracles brought about through use of her tumor cells. On the other hand, it's disturbing that Henrietta's own children saw no proceeds and could not even afford proper health care for themselves, while companies worldwide profited from discoveries and drugs derived from research using Henrietta's calls.
* * *
It's interesting that I found these two books that told stories of African American women in the segregated 50's and 60's; reading one right after the other probably added to my enjoyment. Both were thought-provoking, consciousness-raising reads and I'd highly recommend them.
And now my bookstore crawl begins again.
