Poor Joan Givner got so much grief for her biography of Porter, but it's really a very good biography. Givner may have been brutally honest about Port...morePoor Joan Givner got so much grief for her biography of Porter, but it's really a very good biography. Givner may have been brutally honest about Porter's flaws, but she shows Porter to be all the more interesting for them. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Porter because of how Givner told the story of her life.(less)
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I'm not usually a great reader of collections of letters, but O'Connor comes to life so brilliantly in h...moreThis is one of my favorite books of all time. I'm not usually a great reader of collections of letters, but O'Connor comes to life so brilliantly in her letters that I immediately loved this book. It's a big, thick book, but as I came to the end of it I wept. I knew that I was coming to the end of her life, and I so wanted her to live longer. She was a real character, in all the best senses of that word. And she had no patience with b.s.(less)
This is a terrific book about family love and what it means to have a family member who is "different." Though Glen focuses particularly on the autism...moreThis is a terrific book about family love and what it means to have a family member who is "different." Though Glen focuses particularly on the autism of her youngest son and the challenges he faces as he grows up and becomes a man, the issues she raises are similar for most any family that faces a disability or health issue in a child. What's most unusual about this book is the combination of Glen's mother-love and her cool journalist's eye that gives her the ability to see even her own family clearly. When I read the first chapter, I didn't like the persona of her husband, Bruce, but as I read further into the book, Bruce became a complex and sympathetic person, but one who has the difficulties of a real human being, as does Glen herself. And she doesn't mince words about those troubling moments that they have. In other words, you feel as you read that you are in the hands of someone you can trust to be honest with you, and she reveals the difficulties with humor and modesty. That the book ends on an up-note that many disabled people never (unfortunately) have, Glen is also cautionary about the discrimination that her son will continue to face in his life. She makes a powerful argument for respecting the disabled and tells a beautiful story of parenting. The writing often sparkles, and the book is a pleasure to read.(less)
Skloot took ten years to research and write this book, and the time was well worth it. It's a compelling story, not so much of the woman of the title,...moreSkloot took ten years to research and write this book, and the time was well worth it. It's a compelling story, not so much of the woman of the title, but of her daughter, Deborah, and Skloot's poignant relationship with her.
For me, there were many fascinating questions that remained by book's end. Skloot poses the question of whether or not individuals or their families should be financially compensated for the use of their cells and tissues in research. But what the story pointed out to me was the way that this kind of science is less these days about finding cures and treatments than it is about making profits. It was hard to hold the original scientists accountable for their "stealing" of Henrietta's cells because they didn't see her cells as a profit machine. Only later, in other people's hands, did they become profit machines. Although informed consent should never have been left by the wayside, this made me wish that some more of that scientific curiosity was behind today's research.
Skloot certainly captured the family's vulnerability. In some ways, it felt almost invasive to me, as the family's lack of resources was so astounding that I could see they might feel ashamed. Of course, it's not their fault, and Skloot is careful to make that clear, but I wonder what they will eventually feel about it. And I do hope that Skloot has fully kept her word to invest in scholarships for the Lacks family children. It would be bizarre for someone else yet again to get rich from their situation without any help for them.
Anyway, a great story, dispassionately and yet movingly told.(less)
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