The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became 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. This New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether
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In 1951, a Johns Hopkins surgeon biopsied a tumor on the cervix of a thirty-year-old Black tobacco farmer named Henrietta Lacks, and her cells became the first immortal human cell line. Decades later, science writer Rebecca Skloot finds the family in Baltimore and helps them learn what HeLa is.
Yes. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is Rebecca Skloot's nonfiction account of Henrietta Lacks, whose cancer cells were taken without consent in 1951 and became the immortal HeLa cell line used in vaccine research and other major medical advances.
Yes. HBO released a 2017 film starring Oprah Winfrey as Deborah Lacks. The film is widely considered a faithful adaptation, with Oprah's involvement going back to the book's publication.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was written by Rebecca Skloot, published in 2010 by Crown Publishers.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is 381 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a standalone novel by Rebecca Skloot, not part of a series.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
