About The Book

As a Publishers Weekly reviewer put it, “Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story about faith, science, journalism, and grace. It is also a tale of medical wonders and medical arrogance, racism, poverty and the bond that grows, sometimes painfully, between two very different women—Skloot and Deborah Lacks—sharing an obsession to learn about Deborah’s mother, Henrietta, and her magical, immortal cells [HeLa cells].” This book provides fertile ground for interdisciplinary dialogue, from science, technology, engineering, medicine and nursing (and the business of these disciplines) to social justice, ethics, the arts and the humanities. And the book is very well written; it is the “winner of several awards, including the 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Award for Excellence in Science Writing, [and it] was featured on over 60 critics’ best of the year lists.”