Golden Girls of the West

My trio, Raison D'Etre, has a new project. Here's the one-sheet description:

The women of the folk trio, Raison D'Etre(Violet Rae Webster, Vickie Riffe Ellis and Roberta Schultz)have never backed down from a challenge, period. Especially period music challenges. When Historic Washington, KY wanted frontier carolers, they learned holiday tunes from pre-1820. When the Cincinnati Museum Center wanted Shaker music, Civil War songs, and WWII swing tunes, they researched, arranged, and found the costumes. So when the founder of the Old West Festival wondered if they just might be able to do an hour of Old West songs, Roberta Schultz, singer, guitar player, and one of the songwriters for the trio began researching:

"In one of the first articles that I read on the popular music of the late 1800s, I was surprised that the author declared this period a dead zone in music. Lots of minstrel shows were being performed all over the East and the South. And many of these shows had newly composed songs like "Lubly Fan" which later became "Buffalo Gals" and "Wait for the Wagon" which came from a musical in the 1850s. Cowboys took these songs with them when they rode the trails of the West, along with many tunes from the Civil War and old ballads that funneled through the folk process to become cowboy songs. I didn't see a 'dead zone.' Instead, I saw a rich period in American music that paved the way for singer songwriters, Tin Pan Alley, and Broadway musicals."

Schultz's research resulted in yet another full hour of period music that Raison D'Etre performs at the Old West Festival and for libraries as Golden Girls of the West.:

"We've always enjoyed having fun with our album titles. When we recorded a sound track for a community theatre production of 'Dearly Departed,' we couldn't resist putting our baby pictures on the cover and calling the collection of Baptist hymns 'Broadman Babies' to hearken back to the show tune 'Broadway Babies' and our early church-going roots. When we did a collection of classic Christmas carols, we called it 'Christmas Belles' and asked our friend Freddie Thoman to sketch a cover of three belles in hoop shirts that were also a string of bells. Much to our delight and surprise, the sequel to the play 'Dearly Departed' was also named 'Christmas Belles'--a coincidence that only encouraged the tongue-in-cheek naming tradition. So, when we learned an entire set of Old West tunes, I remembered the sister act, Girls of the Golden West, who recorded cowgirl songs during the 1940s. It didn't take long to think of the transposition for that title. 'Golden Girls of the West' was born."

While performing the Old West tunes during the 2008 inaugural season of the Old West Festival near Williamsburg, OH, the trio found that the set was often too sad for their liking. Said Schultz, "Cowboys had a pretty hard scrabble existence, so many of the songs were about homesickness, lost loves, and death. We were wondering what we could do to the set to lift our spirits without compromising its authenticity. So, we did what we always do to add some sass to a folk music set.

We added a few songs from the swing era that were about the Old West. Cole Porter's classic, 'Don't Fence Me In" causes lots of sing alongs, plus we can really bemoan our cowgirl plight with the cheeky 'Buttons and Bows.' Add Dale Evans' wonderfully upbeat 'Happy Trails' to the end of any set, and you have the recipe for a good time."

"Golden Girls of the West" loped their way into the studio this spring to begin recording this classic set of cowgirl tunes. The result is an honest, respectful rendering of 11 Old West songs anchored by the lighthearted trio of "Hollywood cowgirl songs," as Schultz likes to call them. One Schultz original entitled "The Papers" also found its way on to the recording since it is a family story about Henry Price, a young Blackfoot who traveled with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to the Ohio Valley in the late 1800s. He was Violet Webster's and Roberta Schultz's great grandfather:

"My Grandma, Babe, always told me the story of how her daddy ended up in Portsmouth, OH as an indentured servant. It was an important legacy to her, and since it's part of our Old West history in this area, I thought it deserved a place on the album."

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We debuted the new recording at the Old West Festival this fall to record crowds for the Festival and a few sales for us. If you'd like to hear a few authentic songs of the Old West plus some great Hollywood cowgirl tunes, I've included a link to the right and also a link to the interview Lee Hay did with me about the CD and the Festival back in September. You can buy the CD by going to the Raison D'Etre homepage(bottom link on the right.)

Happy Trails!

Wench

When Wench was first published in 2010 by Amistad Books, the work garnered praise from USA Today, People, and Essence. Available earlier this year in paperback, the provocative title leads the reader into the Ohio woods to a place that actually existed,Tawawa House. Author Dolen Perkins-Valdez found the kernel for her first novel while reading a biography of W.E.B. Du Bois about his tenure at Wilberforce University of Ohio. That biography made reference to a summer resort near Xenia that was popular among slave holders who vacationed with their enslaved mistresses.

From a sketched broadside of the actual resort, called Tawawa, a Shawnee word for clear water, newspaper advertisements from the time, and her own extensive reading of nineteenth century slave narratives, Perkins-Valdez was able to piece together what these summer forays into the free state of Ohio must have been like for a group of slaves during the years leading up to the Civil War.

The structure of the novel consists of four parts which are mainly chronological except for one flashback departure(Part II) that serves to explain how Lizzie, the main character, becomes a mistress to her owner, Nathaniel Drayle. Part I takes place during 1852, the second summer this particular group of slaves, from Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia travels to Tawawa with their masters. The proximity of their cabins, the more casual vacation attitude of the resort and their cooperation to serve the small group of slave owners brings them together in a way not permitted at their southern plantations. The resort also includes a hotel where freemen and women are employed. The slaves are fascinated that the hotel employees can come and go as they please. And even more intrigued when they learn that a resort exists nearby for free blacks.

This unfamiliar notion of freedom becomes more pronounced when the "regulars" at the resort, Lizzie, Reenie and Sweet meet a new arrival to Tawawa, named Mawu. Independent and strong-willed, Mawu voices the group's unexpressed hope for escape. Then, as the women actually meet the inhabitants of the resort for free blacks and a Quaker abolitionist named Glory, their thoughts of freedom pervade the atmosphere for the rest of Part I.

I found the flashback in Part II, which goes back to the period from 1842-1849 and focuses on the character, Lizzie, to be jarring at first. Part I set up the major conflict for this interesting group of characters so well that I wanted to know which ones would seek the freedom right under their noses. However, since Part II takes a close-up look of how a young slave girl becomes a mistress to her owner and what this does to the fabric of his family and her resulting children, I am grateful that Perkins-Valdez structured the narrative as she did.

In Parts III and IV, the friendships among Lizzie, Mawu, Reenie, and Sweet deepen as they support each other through tragic events and discover the love of family denied them by the institution of slavery. The decision to grab freedom while they are so near it becomes complicated by many unforeseen circumstances. The novel explores the themes of power and freedom, love and dependence, all while turning an unflinching eye toward the moral complexities embodied in slavery.

When asked why she chose the title, Wench, Perkins-Valdez cites that wanted posters often listed runaway female slaves as "wenches," reinforcing a stereotype prevalent during those times that regarded black women as hypersexualized. While the word "wench" originally meant "young girl" in Middle English, it evolved to mean "wanton woman." When the word entered American English, it was applied specifically to black women. The author notes (in the interview following the text of the novel) that given the sexual servitude of her characters, the title really seemed to fit.

Wench will appeal to readers who love historic fiction, but also to those who just love a good read, strong characters, and tough questions. You can find a link to Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez at WVXU.org.

Chinaberry

You can listen to my review of Chinaberry by James Still(edited by Silas House) on WVXU's Around Cincinnati archives.

New this spring from The University Press of Kentucky is James Still's final masterpiece, Chinaberry, edited by Silas House. Celebrated as the "Dean of Appalachian Literature," Still--a novelist, poet, short story writer and folklorist--spanned nearly two-thirds of the 20th Century in his career. At his death in 2001, he was actively working on Chinaberry which takes its title from a Texas ranch that is the backdrop for the story. Still's friends and family approached best-selling novelist. Silas House (who is also the current NEH Chair of Appalachian Studies at Berea College in Berea, KY) with the task of piecing together the papers and notes Still had stored for years in a broken leather briefcase. In a beautifully written introduction, House describes the process of editing the work while remaining true to the author's intention for plot, theme, tone and syntax. House addresses the musical craft contained in a particular sentence in this way:

"A reader could sing this line aloud if she took a notion and all the while feel the heat of the Texas sun on her neck, smell the corn baking in the fields, and see the limp leaves on the trees. A whole way of life packed into one rhythmic and lovely sentence."

The story itself, told by a small-for-his-age narrator, is both engaging and curious, and might--as the afterword by Carol Boggus notes--be at least partially autobiographical. A thirteen-year-old boy travels to Texas with his temporary guardian, Ernest, and a pair of pranksters dubbed "The Knuckleheads" for their endless mischief. It is the boy's father's wish that he experience Texas for the summer.

As the traveling companions seek employment picking cotton, the boy is quickly swept off to a cattle ranch where the owners live in the shadow of a child's death. The boy spends the next several months living with ranchers, Lurie and Anson Winters, trying to unravel the mysteries of Chinaberry's complex inhabitants and their longings.

In fact, while one of the major themes of the novel seems to be nature of memory, another important theme examines the idea of longing: the boy for his home, the Winters for a child, Lurie for a unique place in her husband's heart, Anson for his lost baby, and even the narrator's father for his beloved Texas. In their leaning toward these aching spaces in their lives, the characters cause the reader to consider the durable human spirit.

"Throughout my editing of this manuscript," says Silas House in the introduction, "it seemed very clear to me that Mr. Still wanted, more than anything, to tell the truth in this book while also leaving some mystery behind. The truth, of course is the human condition, and conveying it is a tall order for any writer. That's exactly what the haunting ending does."

Chinaberry renders the epic flavor of Texas in the early 20th Century with an artistry that places the reader in each savory second of the narrative. In the afterward, Carol Boggus weighs in on the autobiographical links to the work with this comment,:

"Whether Chinaberry is mostly fact or fiction, the result is indisputable,a beautiful, but haunting tale, a simple but complicated situation, an adventure taking a real Alabama boy into a fantasy world in Texas, then sending him back home again, changed forever."

The reader, too, is changed by these characters and their longings in their time and their place "where half the world was sky."

You can find a link to Chinaberry by James Still, edited by Silas House at WVXU.org.

Voices from the Peace Corps

2011 marks the 50th year of one of the nation's most successful international aid programs, the Peace Corps. Established by President Kennedy on March 1, 1961, the Corps' reach stretches around the globe from the southern tip of South America to the remote islands of eastern Asia, continuing to bring people of all backgrounds together to promote peace, compassion, and unity.

A new release from The University Press of Kentucky, Voices from the Peace Corps: Fifty Years of Kentucky Volunteers by Angene Wilson and Jack Wilson, takes a personal look at the experiences of Kentuckians who served in the Peace Corps, featuring the oral histories of six returned volunteers with strong Kentucky ties who span five decades of the Corps' history.

The book is the ninth volume in a series of Kentucky oral histories entitled Kentucky Remembered: an Oral History Series. Both Angene and Jack Wilson served in the Peace Corps themselves. For this project, they conducted eighty-six interviews, shaping the many stories into a whole that links the individual to the collective--much as the Peace Corps does by its very design.

In the first chapter entitled, "Why We Went," the authors include oral histories to explain the motivation to service. While the Kennedy factor,Viet Nam, career preparation, Peace Corps commercials, international experience, prior community service, mentors, and practical idealism are examined as motivators, the oral histories reveal highly individual reasons for joining up.

For example, Martin and Patsy Tracy, who served in Turkey from 1965-1967, married during their sophomore year of college at Murray State. While spending time with international students, they were challenged to experience the relative poverty of the wider world.

As Martin remembers, "I had always wanted to have an international experience...I've always had a fascination with how other people live and a sense of adventure."

While Patsy admits, "Martin was more international than I was. I had a firsthand living experience with hard times. Martin was more middle class, and he wanted to find out what the world of service in a rural or poor international community would be like. It wasn't my idea; it was Martin's idea to explore the Peace Corps."

From the next decade, the Wilsons introduce us to Rona Roberts, who served in the Philippines from 1973-1975 and grew up on a 450-acre working farm on a dirt road in Wayne County, KY. When her mother became a school librarian, the many books that came into her house began Rona's fascination with travel. Accelerated by her mother's involvement in the Farm Bureau Women's German placement program, Rona became well-acquainted with a German family when her mother hosted one of the German students.

"Jump forward to the Viet Nam War era," says Rona. "I always had a stubborn sense about fairness and equity. And I believed strongly that women should be drafted if men were going to be drafted. I had a strong sense about service. I believed that national service was extremely important, and I still do."

Rebecca Roach, of Middletown, OH served in Liberia from 1988-1989. A farmer's daughter and Morehead State University graduate, she has always considered herself Southern. She explains a generational promise as part of her reason for joining the Peace Corps:

"We were raised Pentecostal and my grandmother always wanted a missionary in the family. When she conceived my mother, she dedicated her to missions. My mother never went on to be a missionary, but she really pushed me toward international travel," Roach says, though she adds that her mother was motivated by a belief that Rebecca had a gift for working with people.

Sarah Cross Oddo, who served in Jamaica from 1993-1995 cites meeting some returned Peace Corps volunteers as part of her motivation to serve. Born and raised in Lexington, KY, she majored in environmental geology and spent a summer working as a maid in Yellowstone National Park. There she had a roommate who was applying to the Peace Corps.

"When I was a kid I remember seeing the (Peace Corps) commercial where people were all fishing, and I always thought that looked like great fun. I thought I wanted to go to a village in Africa and fish with all the villagers," says Oddo. She also remarked that her family had always lived in the same house in Lexington, and that she had craved a rural experience.

Aaron Schraberg who served in China from 2004-2006, grew up Jewish in Kentucky. After receiving a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from University of Kentucky, he was weighing his options: law school, a job, or leave the U.S. and see what's out there. Schraberg describes his thought process in the following:

"I really wanted to broaden my perspective, wanted to see what it was like to live in another culture. So, my thought process was: I'm young: I have many years to do graduate studies or begin working." Schraberg goes on to admit that he wanted some adventure and that a friend was considering signing up with him. An internet search provided him with more motivation as he read about the the program's mission and goals.

The Wilsons follow these Peace Corps volunteers through the other chapters about the application process, training, living conditions, the hardest issues faced, coming home, and the feeling that they are forever changed by the experience as "citizens of the world." There are also some excellent famous people stories along with charts of the interviewees and a list of the countries served by the Peace Corps since its inception. Middle-of-the-book photos allow the reader to know these exceptional people even better.

If you've been considering the Peace Corps, or just want an in-depth look at its 50-year legacy, Voices from the Peace Corps: Fifty Years of Kentucky Volunteers by Angene Wilson and Jack Wilson links the individual to the collective in a very personal way: through the words of those who served.

You can link to this book at www.wvxu.org.

Out of the Mountains

While Meredith Sue Willis teaches novel writing at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies, she hails from the mountains of West Virginia. Her latest collection of short stories, entitled Out of the Mountains: Appalachian Stories (from Ohio University Press, 2010) focuses on what makes 21st Century Appalachians unique. In an afterword Willis explains that part of her purpose in writing these stories was to explore what Appalachians retain and take along when they leave the mountains and also what Appalachians contribute to the larger culture in the way of insights and attitudes.

The first story, "Triangulation" sets up the relationship of Appalachians to the larger world by explaining the navigational process of locating an unknown point by the formation of a triangle. The structure of the story cleverly describes a triangle between what was going on in the world in 1917 and life events of the narrator's grandmother in Bold Camp,Wise County. While the grandmother stirs her wash in a pot over an open fire, an artist in Austria named Klimt discovers the flatness of pattern he favors by viewing a distant village through a spyglass. Meanwhile, socialist Emma Goldman is chugging through the mountains on a train, headed for prison. Out the window, she sees a woman stirring her wash over an open fire. Willis locates her ancestors at one point of a triangle in relation to the history of the 20th Century. "Here I begin to locate myself," she writes, and the reader begins a journey from the bird's eye view, a cinematic storytelling style that will gradually zoom in to the fascinating characters who people this collection.

Such a character is Merlee Savage, RN, featured in three of the stories at different points in her life, before she becomes a nurse, caring for a dying woman in her mountain vacation home, after she becomes a nurse, helping another woman overthrow the oppression of her now-dead husband, and finally in her later years, making peace with her own estranged spouse. Another recurring character is Roy Critchfield, who quits the high school baseball team and starts seeing "little harlots" everywhere after his mother leaves his brutal father. He resurfaces in another story as the scandalous interim youth minister for the First Baptist Church of Kingfield. This story, told from the point of view of a hilarious trio of elder women, shines the light on the complex mountaintop removal issue. Another character, named Elvissa--named after Elvis Presley by her mother, makes New York City and the idea of becoming Jewish, her hobby. There is even a story about how the awkwardness of homophobia can intrude on a loving family's time to grieve.

I loved this collection because it is not just about the rich folk heritage of an Appalachian past, but about how contemporary people from the mountains deal with moving out or moving on. "The Appalachian kind of moving on," says the author in her afterword, "is often fraught with loss, nostalgia, and a sharp awareness that even as we gain something, we lose." The stories from Out of the Mountains make me wish I knew these people. I probably do.

This review was originally aired on WVXU's Around Cincinnati on May 15, 2011. For an audio link, check the lower right of this page.

Ten Tongues by Cyn Kitchen

Ten Tongues (2010 from Motes Books of Louisville) is author Cyn Kitchen's first book. The ten short stories in the collection explore the darker side of human nature through intimate relationships with characters reminiscent of Flannery O' Connor, James Thurber, and Cormac McCarthy.

The title story, "Ten Tongues" opens with Ruby Baird giving birth to her daughter at the altar of the First Penecostal Church of the Empty Cross. The major conflict of the story emerges immediately when the daughter, Lola, who is brought into the world with the sounds of the women "annointing Lola with their voices," cannot herself make a sound. The tension between mother and daughter is at once palpable since Ruby Baird perceives herself to be gifted at talking in tongues, described beautifully by Kitchen in these words: "Heavenly languages, quivering flicks of tongue on palate, primordial songs of celebration and lamentation." Like many of the best Flannery O'Connor stories, Ten Tongues features bizarre, sometimes disabled characters who sit in judgment of their fellow men and women. Some, like Lola, are guided by the influence of a quirky brand of fundamentalism while others are motivated by an edgy psychological force.

In the story, "Savior," an ex-marine named Paul does battle with a scatter-brained neighbor who cannot remember to keep her two dogs off of his lawn. The rage he expresses at stepping in the dog droppings and the revenge he verbalizes to his wife sets up the comic battle royale between the thoughtless bad neighbor who constantly invites him and his family to church and the tightly wound Paul, Described at the onset in these words: "Paul's marine training had filed him to a sharp edge." Like many of Flannery O'Connor's most colorful characters, Paul is intent on teaching the thoughtless neighbor a lesson, but in the process reveals both a most disturbing and human side. The beauty in Kitchen's characters is that they are so human and familiar, even in their edginess. We might not go as far as Paul in our actions, but who hasn't wanted to fling thoughtless behavior back at a clueless neighbor?

Other stories in this collection examine the war between men and women much as Thurber did with dark comedy and hapless struggle. "The Raccoon in the Wall" pits

a married couple, Faunda and Jerry, against an intruding raccoon who has set up housekeeping in their wall. I wriggled in discomfort while laughing at the escalating slapstick battle that becomes more about the marriage and less about the raccoon. Kitchen skillfully paints the opening volley of this martial warfare while giving the reader a snapshot of its ridiculousness: "Jerry appeared on the back porch wearing red flannel pants with a chaotic pattern of penguins on them, holding a mug of coffee. 'You missed a piece,' he called out to Faunda."

In the story "Settlement," the battle between men and women is carried out in the internal monologue of a woman listing belongings for a settlement agreement. Each object--printed in italics in the text of the story--brings with it a vignette about why the marriage didn't work. While Corinne cleans out her house and plans her move to an apartment, she categorizes the residue of her relationship as "pitch" or 'keep." A copy of The Thornbirds gets labeled "essential" when Corinne recalls how her husband, Tom, would never let her read it without interrupting. Again, all the stuff becomes touchstone for what didn't work in the marriage. The only comic battle in this story exists between Corinne and a loudly ticking clock, symbolic perhaps in its commentary on her need to get on with her life.

Sudden violence punctuates a few of the stories, reminding the reader of Cormac McCarthy scenes or the sudden turn of a Coen brothers movie. "How to Avoid Sex with a Man Who Weighs 300 Lbs More Than You" recounts a woman's temporary escape from her mismatched, sexless marriage. As she carelessly wanders into an affair with her seductive pastor, the pastor's wife tries to warn her why the grass may not be greener. In "Out on a Rail," Carl tries to piece together the last minutes of his former lover's life. He theorizes that it must have been an accident since someone who had survived the Iraqi War and a brutal husband would want to be there for her kids.

Last fall when Ten Tongues was released, Cyn Kitchen celebrated her book launch by gathering with friends for a cookout on her backyard patio. In what could easily be a plot line from one of her stories, a neighbor was banging the door noisily in the background and staring at the gathering of friends. Suddenly, the neighbor stumbled forward toward the fire and threw some paper in, wandering wordlessly back to her house.

Kitchen determined that the burned text was the story, "Diagnosis," a sad, beautiful account of a couple's struggle against breast cancer. The power of Ten Tongues lies in its effortless storytelling and in the fact that we can all recognize ourselves in the dark humanity of its characters. Sometimes too clearly.

Life on the Color Line

Nearing the top of my must-read book list for the past year was yet another work of nonfiction by UC's current president. Life on the Color Line: the True Story of a White Boy who Discovered He was Black was originally published in 1995 by Plume, a division of Penguin Books. The memoir chronicles Gregory Howard Williams' childhood journey from rural Virginia where he lived comfortably as a white tavern owner's son to the black neighborhoods of Muncie, Indiana during the racially charged 1950s and 60s. When Williams' parents divorce, his father suffers an economic reversal that sends Gregory and his younger brother Mike packing for their paternal grandmother's cramped home in Indiana. It is only then that Gregory Williams finds out that his dark-skinned father, Tony, is not Italian. He also learns that his mother has abandoned them, taking the two younger children with her.

In Muncie, the light-skinned Williams brothers quickly discover the limits of the color line. Their black grandmother reluctantly lets them live with her, giving them cots in a makeshift bathroom while their father--known as "Buster" in their new surroundings--drinks up any money he might earn for their food. On one of their first forays to a Muncie playground, they are pummeled by black kids for being white. Their white grandparents, who formerly welcomed them to visit in the past, do nothing to help them now. Unable to find a job, Buster Williams tells his sons that he might have to send them to an orphanage. When a kind widow, Dora Terry, intervenes to take the Williams brothers in, she becomes for Gregory a necessary mother figure who balances his father's inconsistent attempts at parenting.

Figuring prominently in this painful memoir is the intermittent voice of Williams' father. Buster Williams is a man who dreams of success for himself, quotes "Invictus," and insists that Gregory study law and not teaching, all the while fighting his own losing battle with alcohol. The author dedicates the book to his father,(along with Miss Dora Terry) crediting him with shaping his ability to envision and make a future for himself. His father's voice guides him to be sexually responsible in high school when he can't get the word "pragnant"--as his father pronounced it-- out of his head. At basketball games, football games and graduation, Williams searches for his father's face in the crowd, never being sure he can count on his presence, but knowing his words remain, taunting, advising, scolding and above all, loving. In fact, the author makes ironic use of his father's words to emphasize how indelible the effects of Muncie have become to him:

"Son, one day this will all pale into insignificance." The author argues that, on the contrary, Muncie will never pale into insignificance since it lives in him forever--a constant reminder of who he was and is.

Gregory Howard Williams survived high school in Muncie by embracing all of his heritage. In the early sixties, that meant choosing black. The black community accepted him even though he looked white, while his white teachers and coaches warned him about the dangers of crossing the color line to date white girls. After working his way through Ball State University with a full-time job as deputy sheriff, Williams went on to teach history and to study law, as his father advised. He was the Dean of Ohio State University Law School and the President of City College of New York before assuming the Presidency at University of Cincinnati in 2009. He married his high school sweetheart.

Life on the Color Line is a tribute to the unconquerable human spirit, daring us to build bridges over the boundaries that separate us from our dreams.

(This review aired on Around Cincinnati on February 20, 2011.)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

In the summer of 2010, I spent several weeks on a committee to select one book for a community to read together. Libraries all over the country do this each year, hoping to create avid readers through exciting dialogue and programming. Our task was to review some of the more remarkable titles of the past few years to find a compelling read that would somehow engage the entire community. We were given the following parameters: the book must be available in all formats and be no longer than 300 pages, the topic must gather a wide readership, and the author should be approachable for a public appearance. Oh, yes, and we may or may not want to link the book to the 10th Anniversary of 9/11.

After several weeks of tossing out the names of our favorite titles only to have them struck down for not meeting one requirement or the other, our committee was no closer to deciding on a book than we'd been on that first afternoon. Finally, one of the librarians suggested a nonfiction title that was currently on the bestseller list. What's more, the author was known for wanting to make public appearances in connection with her work. We wondered about the format requirements, but decided they would probably be in place by the time we actually needed the book. So, that evening I went out to buy science writer Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks published in 2010 by Crown Publishers.

I have to tell you from the onset that I am one of those people who--when faced with a nonfiction work of over 300 pages-- will go straight to the photos in the middle of the book before actually beginning to read. I know that I do it because I am wired for interesting characters, a narrative hook, and a story that unfolds. Too many works of nonfiction meander through dates and events like an uninspired history lecture. From them I have learned to take solace in the middle of the book photos, hoping somehow to postpone the inevitable rushing stream of facts by finding my footing on solid pages filled with faces and names.

I'm glad I started with the photo browsing, but not for the usual reason. From the opening quote to the closing discussion of medical ethics, Rebecca Skloot never loses sight that she is writing about a person with a story.

Here is the Elie Wiesel quote that sets up the story:

"We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead. we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph."

Maybe you already knew about HeLa, but I had no clue. She is famous to anyone who studies cells. But Henrietta Lacks(from whom HeLa came) was a 39-year-old mother of 10 who died of cervical cancer in 1951. During her treatment for cancer at John Hopkins and without her knowledge or consent, cells from her aggressive tumor were removed from her body for study. Before that time, scientists had been trying for years to keep cells alive in culture, but the cell lines all eventually died. Henrietta's cells(HeLa) reproduced an entire generation every 24 hours, and they have never stopped. They became the first immortal cells ever grown in a laboratory.

So, where is the unfolding human story in this? Skloots learned of the scientific marvel of HeLa cells in biology class where a teacher called the immortal cell line "one of the most important things that happened in medicine in 100 years." He told the class that the woman from whom these cells were taken was named Henrietta Lacks, and almost as an after-thought added that she was black. After learning that these cells were used to develop drugs to treat everything from leukemia to Parkinson's disease, Skloots became curious about the woman behind the cells and her family. She asked her teacher if Henrietta Lacks had a family. Did they know about how useful her cells had become in science labs? His answer was, "I wish I could tell you, No one knows anything about her." But he spurred Skloot's interest by offering extra credit if she would do some research on the person. 16 years old and enrolled in that class to catch up in school, she took him up on the challenge.

Even though Rebecca Skloots went on to earn a degree in biology, the seed planted in her mind about Henrietta Lacks eventually led her to an MFA in creative nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh. Her need to know the story behind the cells was now morphing into her master's thesis. Skloots went on to be published as a science writer in The New York Times, Discover, and Popular Science before compiling all her research about HeLa into the force of creative nonfiction that is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

While the author advises her own creative nonfiction students at the University of Memphis not to put themselves into the story, perhaps some of the most effective passages in the narrative are when Skloots interacts with the Lacks children, gaining their trust, feeling their grief and outrage, and joining them in their quests to learn about and face the actual cells from their mother. When Deborah Lacks breaks out in welts over her excitement at seeing her younger sister's asylum records for the first time, Skloots begins to wonder if her involvement with the family is bringing them more harm than they can handle.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a sad story of a mother who had to leave her own children in dire circumstances while her cells went on to save the lives of those she never knew. Pharmaceutical companies and research labs prospered from use of her cells while her children were carried off to mental institutions, abusive step parents, prison, and abject poverty. The book concludes with a medical ethics discussion that will surprise you. Patient rights are still very murky when it comes to tissue ownership.

In the end, my one book, one community committee decided that this book was not going to be available in the required formats in time to be our selection. And that is too bad, for It is a fascinating, heart-breaking, eye-opening read that has great potential for beginning dialogue on many issues.

Rebecca Skloots has set up a foundation for the descendants of Henrietta Lacks. No doubt she wishes that this human story-- with its significant anguish--will finally have its measure of triumph.

(This review originally aired on Around Cincinnati on February 13, 2011. To listen to the post as an mp3, go to the audiolinks to the right on this page.)