“Skloot’s book is so much more than a medical history text … she became immersed in black Southern culture, slowly earned the trust of the Lacks family, and shared in the joys, frustrations, and pain still shared by black families across the South today. What is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks really about? Science, African American culture and religion, intellectual property of human tissues, Southern history, medical ethics, civil rights, the overselling of medical advances? The difficulty in defining the book is also what makes so appealing to academics in both the arts and sciences.”