The best nonfiction book I read this year was Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I think it was published in 2010, but I didn't read it until this summer, thanks to my sister's recommendation (Holla, Megan!).
Immortal tells the story of a poor black woman in the 1950s who goes to the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins University Hospital for treatment of a particularly aggressive form of cervical cancer. She eventually dies, but cancer cells taken (without consent) from her cervix eventually become the first cells to be successfully grown in a laboratory setting. Hence, her cells are "immortal," and become--to quote Skloot's website--"one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance."
Doesn't that sound compelling? It is.
Skloot's research is absolutely exhaustive. She spent 10 years earning the trust of Lacks's surviving family members and writing the book, and her personal connection is evident throughout. Her subjectivity weaves itself into the narrative masterfully, without sacrificing Skloot's legitimacy as a journalist, and the book reads almost like a novel. The story is fascinating, strange, sad, and poignant--truly one of those hard-to-put-down, hard-to-forget stories.
Seriously, I highly recommend this book. I totally have a writer's crush on Skloot, too. Almost she persuadeth me to become a science writer.
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