The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Henrietta Lacks was a poor black women who died in the 1950s from cancer. Her cells were harvested (a routine procedure for almost every medical treatment even today - do you ever read the consent forms that you sign?) and are still alive today. The HeLa cells are still being utilized for scientific research around the world and are the basis for many medical advances. Skloot does a great job of explaining the science behind all of this so that the average person can understand it.

The other side of the story is about Henrietta's family, a real study in how poverty impacts every aspect of someone's life - health, education, and ability to climb out of that situation. I found the family story fascinating from a sociological perspective especially since I worked with people in similar situations in the GED program in Baton Rouge.

My book club had a great discussion about medical ethics (a retired pediatrician joined us for the meeting to give us his perspective). Some of the members felt that Skloot inserted herself into the story too much but after reading about her background (her own father was involved in medical trials when he was dying of cancer) I feel like her involvement was appropriate.

Skloot raises important questions about medical ethics, disclosure of personal information, who owns the cells that are harvested for research and who should profit from that research. As Henrietta's son says, why can't her family even afford health insurance when others are making billions from her cells? Very thought provoking as well as a good read!

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Interesting book about Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, and their life together in Paris between WWI and WWII. Reminded me very much of Loving Frank - why do "geniuses" get away with behaving like jerks and why do smart women allow men to treat them so badly? In relation to When Everything Changed (see post by Lisa), some of this was due to the period they lived in but I also realize that it still happens today. Earlier this year I read part of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein (NOT a book that I recommend)about the same group of people living in Paris during that time so I enjoyed getting a different view point. I confess that I haven't read anything by Hemingway but may do so in the future just to find out whether or not I agree that he was the genius that he and everyone else thought he was. The book is very well written in the genre that I recently discovered is called "creative non-fiction" - a story based on facts.

1000 White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

This book was recommended by Elizabeth and I absolutely LOVED it!

The story is based on the premise that back in 1875 the Cheyenne Indians requested the US government trade 1000 white women for 1000 horses. The idea being that in the Cheyenne culture, children are raised in the mother's tribe/culture so any children produced from these unions would be raised in white culture and it would be a learning process for the Indians, who were being decimated by whites, to become acclimated in the culture.

Naturally, in real life, this proposal didn't fly and everyone went home without a resolution but the book takes the idea that it DID happen and how the program unfolded through the journal of the main character, May Dodd.

May was in an insane asylum for promiscuity (sex does make you crazy, doesn't it?) when she signed up for the program - what better candidate to shack up with an Indian husband for two years after all? The journals take the reader through her time in the asylum, the cross-country trip to meet up with her tribe and then the gradual learning of the Cheyenne culture and working to integrate a conflicting set of values/morals into her own life.

Its an amazing concept and very well executed book. I loved all the characters, the descriptions and the writing. What really blew my mind was that it was written by a man - just like in Memoirs of a Geisha - a man being able to fully express a woman character is astonishing to me.

I hope others read it, would love to hear what you all think!

Doing my Pat Conroy Dance

Currently Reading: The Lords of Discipline

Wow, the profanity is rampant thus far. The book focuses on a South Carolina Military Institute that "makes maggots into men," etc. Pat can always take human suffering to a whole new level - his descriptions of the degradations and creative torments (that I'm sure all have a basis in truth) are astonishing and horrifying. I have no doubt that this type of treatment exists in these types of schools. I've heard people joke about "plebe" week/month/year before but I guess they have to repress the memories of how awful it truly was or, to the point that Pat makes, once they survive it, they become a part of the "the system" and embrace the madness.

As I have mentioned in prior PC posts - our main character, Will McLean, is a replica of Leo (South of Broad), Jack (Beach Music) and Tom (Prince of Tides) - all emotionally damaged men with a penchant to lash out due to an innate inability to express all of their inner torments. What I do love about these men though is that they see beauty and culture and would wrap themselves in a blanket of it but they all have that edge, that dark edge, that keeps them from the possibility of ever being fully happy.

As with other PC books, the story takes place in the Southland - Charleston, SC to be exact - and makes the reader jealous to not be from this mythical place that Pat creates. I've never been to most of the places he sets his stories in but I'm afraid that even when I go, I won't see it through these character's eyes and I can never as fully be in love with a place as he maintains someone can be.

I'm only half way through right now, can't wait to see where we go from here!

The Atlas of Love: A Novel by Laurie Frankel

This started out as a cute, simple book. It follows the main character who has two best friends and one of them gets pregnant by this guy who decides he doesn't want to have a kid. Three girls decide to move in together and raise the baby - very 3 Men and a Baby/Little Lady action - and they all experience the frustrations of raising a baby and being graduate students/professors(?).

PS - because they are all English/Literature majors, they decide to go very literary when naming the baby and name him Atlas... and even though I would love to be able to call my future daughter Scarlett, that just seems a bit much for me.

The end of the book was when it got a little weird for me - I felt that there was some serious character mangling and that the author let them go outside of their normal behavior for the sake of drama. Basically the kid's dad comes back into the picture and the kid's mom decides she is going to cut her friends out of their lives and make a sudden home with this guy. I thought her freak out was a little out of character for how she'd been built up but I guess everyone has a little crazy hiding in them.

The hardest part for me was the main character's struggle. The baby's mother was constantly relying on her friends to raise her baby and pretty much taking advantage of them so they got really attached to the baby. When the mom started going psycho, they made her start taking all responsibility ... it was a hard position of "make the mom mature and deal with her own problems because she is being a bitch to her friends" or "be with the baby." I reaaaaallly hate those positions because it always feels like there is no way to win and either way you feel like screaming. When the character did the mature thing and helped take care of the baby, I was proud of her but the anger at the friend made my stomach wrench. (I might get too involved in the books I read).

Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

This book was about the progressive fall of the Comanche Indians, as told through the story line of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son, Quanah Parker – the last great Comanche chief.

I thought the first and third quarters of the book were interesting but the middle part was a little harder to get through. I think I just like the humanist side of relating to either Cynthia or Quanah but the middle section of the book focuses on the systematic destruction of the tribes by the Mexican, Texan and US governments and while heart-breaking/fascinating – war maneuvers don’t typically hold my attention.

This book actually got me a little riled up but I couldn’t honestly decide who’s “side” I was on each time I started to rant about a particular piece from it. Yes, the Indian attacks were horrific – rape, murder of non-combatants, scalping, torture, kidnapping – all despicable, despicable things BUT then there are two parts to think about.

1 – Of course, I would do anything to defend myself/ my family if I felt we were being encroached upon and essentially had a target on our heads

2 – The book makes the point that this was their way of life. The Plains Indians, Comanche’s in particular, were a war society – it wasn’t just white settlers they did this to it was to any enemy - so they didn’t think they were being unusually caustic or acting outside the normal set of agreed upon war responses.

Then when I start thinking about the settlers – the early ones really had to be either crazy or dim-witted to move out to where they did. It would be the rough equivalent of setting up shop in Afghanistan right now, not really the place to see and be seen folks! But that is what makes us Texans great – bull-headed as all but we will keep our land and guns, won’t we?

So while Manifest Destiny was not a term used at this time – the concept was there and people were pushing west. Who wouldn’t want to go? Explore uncharted territory; find anything that wasn’t one of the over-crowded eastern sea-board cities?! So they go, being told they can and that the government wants them to (Fun Fact: The Mexicans enticed people to settle Texas to ostensibly be a first barrier against the raiding Comanches).

So these people feel they have every right to move west and are appalled at the atrociously violent raids against them so they react in a variety of ways – successively more violent over the years.

Are the Indians right that their land/culture/livelihood was taken from them and no response is an over-reaction OR are the settlers right to be able to push forth into new worlds of discovery as the nation was being built? There are obvious moral aspects of this that tip the argument (genocide being one) but I just can’t fall fully on one side. I think that if it wasn’t the white settlers, it would have been another invading group eventually.

Anyways, great book – completely recommend. Hope someone reads it so I can see what you think!!

Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State by Randolph Campbell

A.K.A - Longest book ever written.

It has been a very interesting endeavor but I will say, it has tested even my stamina when it comes to delving into history. I think the FDR biography was the only other one that really made me deliberate if I really should finish or find the cliff notes...

I will say I haven't actually finished this book yet and it has been over a month (A MONTH) since I started but I did take two slight detours into Sue Monk Kidd's books so hopefully that excuses my delay.

Enough kidding, I have liked this book and it has been VERY (exhaustively) informative about the great state. It all started just before Texas Independence Day when I was reading in Texas Monthly about the 175th Anniversary of Texas and got all filled up with state pride. I realized that as much as I boast about the Lone Star State, all I really knew was what I learned in school (which we all find out is pretty much rubbish once we are older) so I thought to educate myself with one of the foremost experts on the field.

This man knows EVERYTHING about Texas from every single original inhabitant to every census ever taken to the ridiculous politics throughout Reconstruction. (I've only just hit the oil boom but I fully expect him to also know who actually shot J.R. once I get there.) The level of detail that has gone into this book is staggering, I can't even begin to imagine the bibliography that has to go with it.

I do like how he pulls global and U.S. events into the conversation to give a well-rounded perspective of events. One of my favorite things about history is the give and take, one action has a direct and equal reaction, cause and effect, nothing exists in a vacuum. What would Texas be like if a few key events hadn't taken place? How different would our lives be? Our identities as Texans that most states don't possess - would that have ever formed without Goliad, the Alamo or San Jacinto? If the goal was to always be incorporated into the Union, how did the focus ON Texas as its own entity have time to grow and be so pervasive through generations?

Sam Houston has really emerged as more of a hero than I ever previously thought of him to be. He alone seems to have had a clear mind and head about the best practices when it came to governing but as it always seems to be in politics, those who shouted louder, won out.

I will say the one thing missing from the book so far, though he does touch on it slightly (and god knows there is no more room for extra information) is the role women played in the creation of the state. Right now, its pretty much a boys club but I know there are some key ladies in the history that need to be given their due.

All in all, I'd recommend but give yourself PLENTY of time to get through it.