The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“Are you sure?” I asked. “This is probably going to say some pretty upsetting things. Do you want me to read it first and tell y ...

Soon after Elsie’s death, a new warden took over at Crownsville and began releasing hun- dreds of patients who’d been institutio ...

church, our waitresses. Each time, she said, “Hi, my name’s Deborah and this is my reporter, you probably heard of us, my mama’s ...

34 The Medical Records A few minutes later, Deborah pounded on my door. She’d changed into an enormous white T- shirt that hung ...

were dozens of notebook pages where Deborah had written definitions of scientific and legal terms, and poems about her life: can ...

As I read, Deborah grabbed several photocopied pages from a genealogy how-to book and held them up for me to see, saying, “That’ ...

“No. I knew you noticed.” She laid her head back down again. We kept on like this for hours, me reading and taking notes, Debora ...

She started frantically stuffing papers into her canvas bags as I tried to explain myself and talk her down. Suddenly she threw ...

and gunfire poured out of the television all night, but I didn’t see her again until six o’clock in the morning—one hour after I ...

When we got to Clover, we walked along the river, down Main Street, and through Henri- etta’s tobacco field. And we visited the ...

Deborah squealed, threw her arms around Gary’s neck, and pulled the photo of Elsie from her pocket. “Look what we got from Crown ...

about.” In a moment of clarity, Deborah nodded, saying, “And we bring our own body down by do- ing it.” “You don’t seem so good ...

Gary sat, calmly rocking in his chair, watching Deborah’s every move, like a doctor study- ing a patient. “Don’t make yourself s ...

Deborah started convulsing in Gary’s arms, weeping and whispering, “Thank ya, Lord ... Thank ya, Lord.” Gary squeezed his eyes t ...

I sat frozen, staring at Gary, thinking, Wait a minute, that wasn’t supposed to happen! Deborah stepped away from Gary’s embrace ...

he next morning Deborah’s hives had gone down some, but her eyes were still swollen, so she decided she needed to go home to see ...

I kept reading: “This is how it will be when the dead are raised to life. When the body is buried, it is mortal; when raised, it ...

W hen Deborah got to her doctor’s office, her blood pressure and blood sugar were so high, her doctor was amazed she hadn’t had ...

Deborah took her placement tests for school and registered for the classes she’d need to get herself up to tenth-grade level and ...

Davon, who was now nine years old, always sat in the choir and watched his grandmother during church. For a moment, as Deborah’s ...