I'll be honest saying I didn't expect a biography of the Lacks clan going into "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". I was expecting something more medical and less human-interest. The irony, that I mentally divided "medical" from "human interest", is not lost on me, and that brought me back to our earlier concerns about the biased categorization.
But that's not important right now. What is important is the nature of the book: I'm not entirely certain how to describe its method of story telling. It's one I see often, a sort of semi-autobiographical research journal where the act of finding is as much a part of the story as what is found. The book is almost more a book for researchers on Ms. Skloot's research practices. As she briefly biographes Dr. George Gey and the research universe he created, or details the jaunt to an insane asylum where Henrietta's oldest daughter died, or describes the application of the cells, the reader develops a sort of understanding of the web of information Rebecca navigated and the forks she took. It's almost as much a book about Rebecca as it is about Henrietta.
With regards to the title, well, I like awful puns, and this one seemed better than "Henrietta Lacksidaisical".
No comments:
Post a Comment