Rebecca Skloot’s
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Chapter Breakdown (Summary)
PART I – LIFE
Chapter 1: “The Exam”
Skloot focuses on the first stages of Henrietta’s cancer, incorporating Henrietta’s dialogue of her initial discovery—“I got a knot in my womb.” The word “knot” is repeated throughout this chapter to show it is not something that should be dismissed as irrelevant. Skloot briefly describes the historical context of the times; the racial segregation of the hospitals reveals the dynamic of a “colored” patient being seen by a white doctor. This chapter shows the first doctor visits that Henrietta goes through; the condition of her cervix is completely ignored.
Chapter 2: “Clover”
Skloot moves us back in time a bit to provide a better portrait of Henrietta and her life leading up to the discovery of the cervical cancer. We learn about David, her husband, who is referred to as “Day.” The two grew up together as cousins and produced four children through wedlock. Skloot describes Henrietta’s lifestyle—she grew up milking cows, tending to tobacco fields, etc. We learn about her first daughter with Day, named Elsie, who suffers from mental retardation. The chapter ends with Henrietta and the children leaving Clover, Virginia to Turner
Station, Maryland where Day was working for a growing steel plant called Sparrows Point.
Chapter 3: “Diagnosis and Treatment”
Skloot moves us forward again to the time in Henrietta’s life where the visits to the doctor begin to occur regularly, just after she discovers a painful “knot.” We learn that Henrietta signs paperwork consenting to any operative procedures that the staff deems necessary. At this point, she does not realize—nor is informed—that this will destroy her ability to procreate forever. She undergoes radiation treatments. Skloot explains the medical context of this 1940s and 1950s era, providing us information on what doctors knew and did not know yet about cervical infections. We are introduced to the culturist, Gey, who collects a tissue sample from
Henrietta’s cervix.
Chapter 4: “The Birth of HeLa”
Skloot describes the story from a different perspective now—we learn about Gey, his motivations and interests within his work studying cell culture, and his meticulous assistant,
Mary. This is where they discover that in the sample from Henrietta, the cells are not merely surviving but growing at a surprisingly fast rate. Gey gives samples to colleagues to examine them, who become just as thrilled as he is that the cells do not die.
Chapter 5: “Blackness Be Spreadin All Inside”

Skloot switches the perspective back to Henrietta and her adult life. She describes
Henrietta visiting Clover frequently, her late nights sneaking out to dance with friends, and what her friends said about her personality and character. We learn that Henrietta was full of spirit and became upset sending Elsie away to the Hospital for the Negro Insane. More doctor visits for
Henrietta; the tumor has shrunken due to the radium treatments, but she begins to feel pain again and her skin has been burnt black on the outside. To her friends, he claims to feel the blackness inside her as well.
Chapter 6: “’Lady’s on the Phone’”
Now Skloot provides her own perspective and beginnings of her research process. We learn about her meeting with a professor, who refuses at first to give her the Lackses’ contact information. Then Skloot speaks with Deborah, who opens up to her during one phone call.
When Skloot tries to call again, the husband of Henrietta speaks with her briefly, but dismisses her as someone who he assumes has his wife’s cells.
Chapter 7: “The Death and Life of Cell Culture”
Skloot switches back to Gey and what he experiences as the media reports reveal to the public that now “cancer can be cured.” Gey sends shipments of HeLa cells to researchers everywhere. This chapter reveals the commodity that the cells have become; they are used for every kind of experiment, exposing the cells to many kinds of toxins to see what the results may be. Carrel, a surgeon who claims to have grown an immortal chicken heart, is discussed in this chapter as well. There is suspicion from others that this chicken heart was never immortal to begin with; it was possibly a hoax. Public attention to the idea of “immortality” through tissue culture began to fade; as a result, HeLa cells did not excite anyone once they were discovered.
Chapter 8: “A Miserable Specimen”
Henrietta’s condition worsens: abdominal pain, trouble urinating, new tumors appearing.
We learn that Gey actually told Henrietta during her final days that her cells would make her immortal and that she was glad she would be helping someone.
Chapter 9: “Turner Station”
Back to Skloot’s perspective, she tries to meet with Henrietta’s family members, such as her son, David “Sonny” Lacks, Jr., at Turner Station. Instead, she meets Courtney, who is protective of the information on Henrietta. Courtney shows Skloot footage of Clover and
Henrietta; “The Way of All Flesh” is a documentary on the HeLa cells. Skloot realizes then that she would have to go to Clover next for real answers from Henrietta’s cousins.
Chapter 10: “The Other Side of the Tracks”
In Clover, Skloot meets “Cootie,” Henrietta’s cousin. He shares some details about her, confirming that her family never got money out of the cell industry that started because of her.

He stresses the possibility of her cells being “man-made,” because “regular cancer don’t keep growing after a person die.”
Chapter 11: “The Devil of Pain Itself”
The setting is at the hospital where Henrietta suffers in pain from the tumors that keep spreading. Family and relatives visit and her last wish is for Day to take good care of the children. She dies on October 4, 1951.
PART II – DEATH
Chapter 12: “The Storm”
No obituary was held for Henrietta. We learn the official cause of her death: terminal uremia, which is blood poisoning due to toxic build-up since urinating was so difficult.
It is pointed out that although the doctors were never required to ask permission to take tissue samples when a patient was alive, it is law that doctors are not allowed to take tissue samples when the patient is dead—unless they have permission from the family. Henrietta’s husband, Day, signs papers without understanding what his consent will actually mean.
The funeral takes place on a rainy day (only Elsie doesn’t know her mother has died since she is still at the institute).
Chapter 13: “The HeLa Factory”
Skloot describes the medical context of the cells and where they are traveling to for experimentation. Different groups, like the NFIP, use HeLa cells to find a cure for polio. The cells are able to survive long trips with different delivery methods. A factory gets built in
Tuskagee with an assembly line of technicians. Because the cells cannot die (therefore, an endless supply), scientists would buy tubes of them for $10 each plus shipping costs.
The Hela cells meant scientists could experiment freezing a cell at different stages and learning more about them in the fields of virology and human genetics. Skloot describes the nature of the HeLa cells in this chapter and how they helped us learn the exact number of chromosomes humans actually have: forty-six.
Gey becomes annoyed that the HeLa cells become so popular. He tries to restrict the way other scientists use the cells, but it’s too late—the cells have become “general scientific property.”
Chapter 14: “Helen Lane”
The reason why Henrietta Lacks’s family did not have any idea about her cells for years to come is because of two scientific inaccuracies that were printed in reports: the timing of the cells and the name Helen Lane. Gey never wanted Henrietta’s name to be leaked to the public and, when it was, the credit was given to ”Helen Lane.”
Chapter 15: “Too Young to Remember”

Skloot provides some narration of the family history, particularly concerning Deborah,
Henrietta’s daughter. Deborah’s cousin, Galen, is aggressive and forceful with her, trying to instigate sexual interaction. Deborah learns from Lawrence about Elsie, her other sister who institutionalized. She does not know much about Elsie or her own mother, Henrietta, thus showing how very little is communicated among members of the Lacks’ family.
Chapter 16: “Spending Eternity in the Same Place”
Skloot visits with one of Henrietta’s cousins, Cliff, in order to learn more about her. She visits where Henrietta was buried and the house she grew up in. Skloots narrates the story of
Henrietta’s great-great-grandmother, Mourning, and her husband, George. There is a lot slavery and land history involved, but what is important to note from this chapter is that there are whites and blacks within the Lacks clan and both groups segregated themselves from one another.
Chapter 17: “Illegal, Immoral and Deplorable”
This is a very important chapter concerning bioethical issues. We are provided with the background history of scientists who would post ads asking for volunteers to undergo medical research, but never told them that they were being injected with cancer cells. Many lies were told to these volunteers. They got prisoners to volunteer, too. These prisoners were a vulnerable group that were unable to give informed consent. Informed consent soon became required in the scientific/medical field, which caused an outrage that now “all medical progress would cease.” It did not seem wrong at the time because the whole profession was doing it; yet, others argued that every human being has the right to know what is being done to his/her own body. Even with informed consent becoming a requirement, the research did not cease—in fact, it increased, with the help of HeLa.
Chapter 18: “Strangest Hybrid”
Scientists were trying to understand how transformed cells were being contaminated; were the HeLa cells the contaminant? They conducted research through “cell sex”; two scientists even fused HeLa with mouse cells. Later, they fused HeLa with chicken cells, trying to learn how to turn disease cells off. The effect of all this research in the media was dramatic, with headlines reporting that scientists were creating hybrid monsters.
Chapter 19: “The Most Critical Time on This Earth is Now”
Crazy Joe’s court issues are described in this chapter; he went to jail because he stabbed someone. Deborah’s marriage is also described; she married Cheetah, who was abusive towards her.
Chapter 20: “The HeLa Bomb ”
Scientists were realizing that normal cells did not just spontaneously become cancerous but that they must have been contaminated by HeLa cells. They checked different cell lines and found that they all tested positive for contamination, leading to the notion that HeLa must have

been contaminated before being brought to the lab in the first place. That means that labs all over the world were working with and spreading contaminated HeLa cells.
Chapter 21: “Night Doctors”
From Skloot’s first person perspective: she meets with Sonny and Lawrence Lacks, two of Henrietta’s sons. Lawrence claims he remembers that she was pretty and strict about cleanliness. Skloot describes what a cell is to Lawrence, so he can understand what happened to his mother. It is humorous when Lawrence says, “Did you know our mother cells gonna be used to make Stevie Wonder see?” Skloot has to explain that his mother’s cells can’t cure blindness directly but that scientists have used her cells to develop culturing techniques for treating blindness.
Day enters the scene; he is not open to talking about his wife, but he does deny signing any papers with the doctors that would allow them to cut into her corpse (autopsy). The Lacks share the rumors that the John Hopkins hospital was known for experimenting on black people; they believe that those doctors would literally snatch them off the street, especially at night.
Skloot provides some historical context on black people being used for research and who
John Hopkins actually was as a person. Henrietta’s family argues that Henrietta never donated her cells, as scientists have led the public to believe; they simply took her cells without asking.
Chapter 22: “The Fame She So Richly Deserves”
Gey learns he has pancreatic cancer. He tries to create a line from his cells because he wants his cells to be immortal like Henrietta’s, but the doctors refuse to cut into his cancer. He undergoes several kinds of treatments, and permits mary to give away Henrietta’s real name if anyone asks but she does not.
A doctor named Howard Jones discovers from research that Henrietta’s tumor was misdiagnosed; nevertheless, the correct treatment still would not have changed the way her cancer was treated. The end result would have been radiation, which is what she had received.
Her real name appears in print for the first time and this news spreads quickly. In this chapter, the name becomes important to many scientists. They do not know who she is; medical ethics is called into question.
PART 3 - IMMORTALITY
Chapter 23: “It’s Alive”
Bobbette learns through a conversation with her brother-in-law that he has some of her mother’s cells in his lab. The news that her mother is “alive” in someone’s lab shocks and disturbs her deeply.