Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez – 384 pages
ARC from Berkley Publishing and Netgalley an honest review
Book Blurb:
Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez: Montgomery, Alabama 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends 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 worn down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients are children—just 11 and 13 years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened and nothing will ever be the same for any of them. Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten. That must not be forgotten. Because history repeats what we don’t remember.
My Review: 4.5 stars
Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is an absolutely riveting story about a time in the seventies when government funded health services were administering Depo-Provera birth control shots, which had known links to cancer. This in and of itself is horrible, but Civil, our main protagonist, soon learns the government is giving these shots to children and even performing sterilization on young girls.
Told in two time periods, mostly in the 70s as Civil is a young nurse and then later in 2016, when Civil goes back to Alabama to see the young girls that she feels and incredible bond with.
Civil is a character that readers will adore. She represents the future of her generation by trying to fix what was wronged. She is strong, smart and scared of what she can’t control. Her love for the young girls, India and Erica, had me in tears. I love the love she bestowed on them but I can understand the family’s POV of not wanting charity.
I enjoyed learning about the attorney Lou Feldman, who was inspired by the real-life lawyer, Joseph Levin that took on this case. This was definitely a book where I found myself googling my way through it because I just couldn’t believe it was based on truth. The author’s note gives details about this drug, the law, similar atrocities and how her story is completely fictional, wrapped around the truths of what happened in the south, mostly to Black women.
Overall, Perkins-Valdez has brought to life a horrifying fact about our nation’s history that I would never have learned otherwise. Book clubs are going to love this one!
Quotes I liked:
Although I refuse to believe there was such a thing as an unwanted child, there was such a thing as an unwanted pregnancy.”
“There are a lot of things a mother can say to hurt her child, even long after the child is an adult.”
“The horror of the events was overwhelming. I had not known white people had gone through something so tragic, and I remember walking around that weekend wondering if every white face I met was a Jewish face, a descendant of a survivor, or even a survivor themselves.”
“I had never known that good intentions could be just as destructive as bad ones.”
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