Book Report Friday: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

It’s funny, I was already planning on writing a review of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. And then I got an email from amazon.com saying it was their editors’ choice for best book of 2010. I could just end the review right here!

I suppose I’ll give you a little more to work with.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about the immortal line of cells, HeLa. It’s also about, Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cells became HeLa. And it’s about Henrietta’s family. Oh, and it’s also about medical history, medical ethics, with a dose of cancer and cell biology thrown in for good measure. You’d think that a book like this would be scattered, dry and hard to read. While I can’t exactly vouch for readability (I listened to the audiobook version), I can tell you that it’s a fascinating and well-written book. All of the little components are woven together so effortlessly, it seems perfectly natural to get information on medical history in the middle of a family story.

Sometimes I think that my favorite books are the ones that can’t be put into one specific category.

Henrietta Lacks never knew that her cancer cells were being taken for medical research. This was the era before informed consent, when people tended to blindly do what their doctors told them to. And Henrietta didn’t live long enough to find out that her cells completely transformed the state of medical research. Previous attempts at creating cell lines had all failed. Henrietta’s cells? Just kept growing and growing. It might have something to do with the fact that they came from a particularly nasty and fast growing case of cervical cancer.  HeLa cells are now in labs around the globe and Henrietta’s family never got a penny from them. In fact, the vast majority of them can’t even afford the most basic of medical care.

I won’t go into the boring details, because they’re all so much more interesting (and accurate!) in the book. Let’s just say that there’s a little bit in this book for everyone. Especially people who are big nerds like me. Pick yourself up a copy and check it out for yourself.