The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully, and movingly.”—Entertainment Weekly
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” (LITHUB), AND “BEST” (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS • WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Financial Times, New York, Independent (U.K.), Times (U.K.), Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Globe and Mail
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” (LITHUB), AND “BEST” (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS • WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Financial Times, New York, Independent (U.K.), Times (U.K.), Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Globe and Mail
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
BUY THE BOOK
Join a book club that is reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks!
Community Reviews
What Bookclubbers are saying about this book
✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks* compellingly humanizes a powerful medical story through accessible writing and deep research. Revie...
Author Rebecca Skloot spent years researching this story, patiently gaining the trust of surviving family members, becoming friends with many of them and even becoming like family to at least one. She grew to care about the characters involved in her story, and wanted to bring some humanity to Henrietta and her descendants.
While the tissue samples were used for private laboratory experimentation without Henrietta's knowledge, you get the feeling that if she'd known about it, she would have agreed to it. She was by all appearances a kind, generous, giving woman, and probably would have readily agreed to donating her tissue if she thought it could help anyone. But the way they were taken is indicative of the tmes. They didn't need permission to obtain or retain tissue or organs from you during surgery or procedures, if obtaining such wasn't harmful to the patient. And a time when there were rumors of white doctors kidnapping blacks on the streets around John Hopkins and doing research and experiments on them. This was not a totally preposterous idea, as doctors had been testing on black citizens for decades without their knowledge. With the way that the Lacks family was misled and even lied to, who can blame them for their mistrust of the medical and scientific community?
Perhaps the most indelible character in the book, aside from Henrietta herself, is that of Henrietta's daughter Deborah, who is the toughest for Rebecca to win over, and yet their relationship grows to be the deepest and most significant. On a personal level, one of the things that I loved most about Deborah were her attempts to do what was best for her kids, and her desire to educate herself and to understand more of what happened to her mother's cells and what they meant to science and medicine.
I loved the names of the family members that made up this story and I noted at one point “Who needs fiction with colorful characters like these?”
My final word: This book brings to life a woman who died over 60 years ago, and tells Henrietta's story and that of her family with compassion and respect. The book is easy to follow, and isn't muddied with complicated scientific principles or language. The author is a layman, and she writes this story as a layman. This book is great for a controversial book club read, as there are so many ethical questions in regards to what the doctors did and how the scientific community has benefited from Henrietta's cells, while her family can't even get medical care.
While the tissue samples were used for private laboratory experimentation without Henrietta's knowledge, you get the feeling that if she'd known about it, she would have agreed to it. She was by all appearances a kind, generous, giving woman, and probably would have readily agreed to donating her tissue if she thought it could help anyone. But the way they were taken is indicative of the tmes. They didn't need permission to obtain or retain tissue or organs from you during surgery or procedures, if obtaining such wasn't harmful to the patient. And a time when there were rumors of white doctors kidnapping blacks on the streets around John Hopkins and doing research and experiments on them. This was not a totally preposterous idea, as doctors had been testing on black citizens for decades without their knowledge. With the way that the Lacks family was misled and even lied to, who can blame them for their mistrust of the medical and scientific community?
Perhaps the most indelible character in the book, aside from Henrietta herself, is that of Henrietta's daughter Deborah, who is the toughest for Rebecca to win over, and yet their relationship grows to be the deepest and most significant. On a personal level, one of the things that I loved most about Deborah were her attempts to do what was best for her kids, and her desire to educate herself and to understand more of what happened to her mother's cells and what they meant to science and medicine.
I loved the names of the family members that made up this story and I noted at one point “Who needs fiction with colorful characters like these?”
My final word: This book brings to life a woman who died over 60 years ago, and tells Henrietta's story and that of her family with compassion and respect. The book is easy to follow, and isn't muddied with complicated scientific principles or language. The author is a layman, and she writes this story as a layman. This book is great for a controversial book club read, as there are so many ethical questions in regards to what the doctors did and how the scientific community has benefited from Henrietta's cells, while her family can't even get medical care.
Good book. It makes you think. Now I want to see the movie and I want to see if anyone wants my cells for Lupus Research. I would let them have them.
Interesting story from multiple perspectives: the appreciation of a historical (?) lack of integrity within the medical field, the perceivable unfortunate trajectory of many lives due to one person's death, insight into the eyes of the law of a person's body, and multiple biology "lessons". I end the book with much empathy for the Lacks family.
Super interesting story about research and the start of HeLa cells and the woman who didn't know she would change the world. A novel about race, white privilege, injustice, and scientific advancement in medicine on the backs of black people.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.