Take My Hand
The inspiring and unforgettable BBC Between the Covers Book Club pick
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5,0 • 1 Bewertung
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- 7,49 €
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- 7,49 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
AS SEEN ON BBC2 BETWEEN THE COVERS
Montgomery, Alabama. 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference in her community. She wants to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a tumbledown cabin and into the heart of the Williams family, Civil learns there is more to her new role than she bargained for. Neither of the two young sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for those handling their welfare benefits, that's reason enough to have them on birth control. When Civil discovers a terrible injustice, she must choose between carrying out instructions or following her heart and decides to risk everything to stand up for what is right.
Inspired by true events and a shocking chapter of recent history, Take My Hand is a novel that will open your eyes and break your heart. An unforgettable story about love and courage, it is also a timely and uplifting reminder that one person can change the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Perkins-Valdez (Balm) captivates with a scintillating story about Black women's involuntary sterilizations in 1970s Montgomery, Ala. Civil Townshend lands her first nursing job after graduating from Tuskegee University at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, where she is instructed to administer the experimental Depo-Provera birth control shot to homebound sisters India and Erica Williams, ages 11 and 13, who live with their sharecropper father in a ramshackle, one-room house. Civil has reservations about giving the shots to her young patients, and her white supervisor later blindsides Civil by ordering the girls to be sterilized after their illiterate father approves the procedure. Civil is mortified and, with the aid of her best friend Tyrell Ralsey, whose parents are lawyers, sets in motion a lawsuit against the clinic. A young, white civil rights lawyer shoulders the case, and the suit expands to include the federal government. Meanwhile, the author movingly explores Civil's passion for reproductive rights, shaped in part by her decision to abort a pregnancy with Tyrell. The medical field's unjust and exploitive treatment of Black people has been covered in the landmark nonfiction titles such as Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and Perkins-Valdez skillfully adds to the literature with a nuanced story personalized by Civil's desire for redemption over her role in the sterilizations. This will move readers.
