It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer. Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions. I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters. Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs. Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77. I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not. Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi
I also found that Rogers did a follow-up book, Biohazard, published in 1977, that goes deeper into the biotech industry. Unable to find a review of any kind on the book, but it is available for cheap through Abebooks and other sources. Rogers is now a Futurist.
ReplyDeleteThe short interviews with the Lacks family in 1997 give a very different impression than the one Skloot left in her book. They seemed very congenial, not the remote family Skloot described. Seems to me that they felt they had said all they had to say on the subject by the time Rebecca came around.
ReplyDeleteAnd I get the impression that she wants to make more of her friendship with the daughter and the family than was there. They didn't even notify her of Deborah's death.
ReplyDeleteAgain, this book seems more about Skloot, starting with her being so smart in biology at 16, and less about the real people involved.
Still, it's turned out to be a great book to discuss!
WOW! Thanks, Gintaras. What a film. Highly recommend it after reading the book.
ReplyDeleteGintaras, I didn't want our conversation on the HeLa cells, et al. to end without thanking you for finding and posting the link to this documentary. It showed Deborah Lacks as a confident self-assured person, hurt by the absences in her life, but not silly as she often seems in the book. I wish more people could see it. Again, thanks.
ReplyDeleteI would say the way the Lacks family has been characterized is what annoyed me most about the book. The funny part is reading Skloot describe the documentary. Of course, she had access to the raw footage, but Deborah didn't come across the way she described her at all, and I don't think that was just editing.
ReplyDeleteCarol, glad you watched that! Wasn't it fascinating?!
ReplyDeleteWhat it did for me is confirm my intuition about the Lacks family -- that they weren't some sort of ignorant low lifes as Skloot suggests in the way she writes about them.
I'll have to go back now and see what Skloot says about the documentary. Taken with the Landecker journal article, you can see the real story. Just as shocking and uncomfortable as Skloots wants you to think it is, but done with some insight and compassion, for lack of a better word this early in the morning.
Or respect. I think that's the word I was looking for.
ReplyDeleteav, the documentary has what the book most lacked, good production values. The more I read about Skloot's maneuvers to produce a best seller, the less I think of her. On the other hand, probably that kind of behind the scenes activity is involved in every best seller. Even in times of economic adversity, Americans have a lot of disposable income to spend on books like this. (OTH, better Skloot than Cussler or Brown.)
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