The success of Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, must be making the Lacks family proud.  Forgotten, ignored and dismissed for decades, the Lacks family is now the subject of a book that has climbed to the top of the non-fiction bestseller list.

Skloot’s book tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who died of ovarian cancer in the 1950’s.  Before she died, doctors took a sample of the tissue from the cyst on her ovary without her knowledge, and created the first “immortal,” or constantly dividing, cells from it.  Since the 1950's, Henrietta's cells have been sent to the moon, used to develop polio vaccine and studied to create procedures for in vitro fertilization.  The heart of the book, however, is Skloot’s relationship with Henrietta’s family, none of who knew anything about immortal cells and little about science and were confined to cyclical poverty. More than for their mother, this book is for them.