The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2010

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Chapters 8-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Life”

Chapter 8 Summary

It is June 1951, and Henrietta repeatedly tells her doctor that the cancer has spread, and she is in a lot of pain. Her doctor dismisses her comments and tells her to return for her next check-up. Her gynecologist, Howard Jones, tells Skloot many decades later that Henrietta’s care was equal to that of any white patient, though Skloot cites research which shows that the treatment of black patients was often delayed until later stages of the illness.

By August, Henrietta is in agony and tests confirm that the cancer has spread aggressively throughout her whole body. She is hospitalized and doctors try, unsuccessfully, to ease her pain.

Chapter 9 Summary

It’s 1999, and Skloot has driven to Baltimore to meet one of Henrietta’s sons, David Jr., who is known as Sonny. However, Sonny changes his mind and does not turn up, so Skloot takes herself on a trip to Turner Station, where Henrietta spent most of her adult life. The town is now in decline, with a population of only 1,000.

Skloot meets Courtney Speed, owner of Speed’s Grocery and the driving force behind a foundation to create a Henrietta Lacks museum. Courtney is initially suspicious of Skloot’s intentions and worries that she may be connected to someone called Mr. Cofield, but she soon warms to Skloot. Like Deborah’s initial response, Courtney is delighted that someone wants to tell Henrietta’s story; she wants to tell Skloot everything she knows but cannot say anything until she has the agreement of the Lacks family. Again, there is an emphasis on how much the family has suffered.

Chapter 10 Summary

Continuing the timeline from the previous chapter, Skloot visits Henrietta’s childhood home in Clover, Virginia. Like Turner Station, Clover is in a state of decay and full of abandoned shops: “like someone left for lunch decades earlier and never bothered coming back” (77). She describes Lacks Town: “a single road about a mile long and lined with dozens of houses” (78). The first person Skloot speaks with is Cootie, Henrietta’s first cousin. Like everyone in Lacks Town, he lives in poverty, but he is friendly and more than willing to talk to Skloot, telling her that, although everyone in Lacks Town is related to Henrietta, her memory has faded over the decades.

Cootie emphasizes that Henrietta was a strong, loving person who was popular with everyone. He also tells Skloot that Henrietta’s friends and family have never been able to understand how the cells can continue living so long after her death and that they struggle to reconcile the cells’ existence with their religious and spiritual beliefs. Cootie does not know “if a spirit got Henrietta or if a doctor did it” (82).

Chapter 11 Summary

The narrative returns to September 1951. Henrietta’s body is riddled with tumors, and her pain is unbearable. Her cousin Emmett, who donated blood for Henrietta’s transfusions, describes her last visit to Elsie several months earlier: she knew she would not see her daughter again, but she was unaware that, after her death, “no-one would ever visit Elsie again” (84).

By the end of September, doctors have discontinued all treatment except pain relief. Henrietta begs her sister, Gladys, to take care of her children, and to make sure their father takes care of them. She dies on October 4th, 1951.

Chapters 8-11 Analysis

The two chapters describing Henrietta’s final decline and death are interrupted by two chapters recounting the author’s research. The book’s structure helps create compassion for Henrietta as a person, which is important because of the way scientists and doctors dehumanize her throughout the story. Already, we see that Skloot is attempting to write Henrietta’s story with more empathy and consideration than Henrietta received in life.

Skloot visits Turner Station, Henrietta’s adult home, then Clover, Virginia, her childhood home. In the former, she again encounters the family’s resistance to speaking to her: Sonny’s last-minute change-of-heart indicates the family’s fear and the negative experiences they have had at the hands of people who have exploited them. Courtney Speed emphasizes this—though she is willing to talk, she will not do so without the family’s consent.

A different reaction awaits in Clover, where Henrietta’s cousin Cootie is happy to talk. He provides some insight into the family’s struggle to understand what has happened: they have deeply held religious and spiritual beliefs which do not sit comfortably with what the scientists are doing. Cootie also emphasizes how Henrietta was deeply loved, a central figure in her extended family and local community, which makes the tragedy of her death in Chapter 11 all the more heart-rending.