Includes bibliographical references (pages 346-366) and index.

A few words about this book -- Prologue: the woman in the photograph -- Deborah's voice -- Part One: Life -- The exam 1951 -- Clover 1920-1942 -- Diagnosis and treatment 1951 -- The birth of HeLa 1951 -- "Blackness be spreadin all inside" 1951 -- "Lady's on the phone" 1999 -- The death and life of cell culture 1951 -- "A miserable specimen" 1951 -- Turner Station 1999 -- The other side of the tracks 1999 -- "The devil of pain itself" 1951 -- Part Two: Death -- The storm 1951 -- The HeLa factory 1951-1953 -- Helen Lane 1953-1954 -- "Too young to remember" 1951-1965 -- "Spending eternity in the same place" 1999 -- Illegal, immoral, and deplorable 1954-1966 -- "Strangest hybrid" 1960-1966 -- "The most critical time on this earth is now" 1966-1973 -- The HeLa bomb 1966 -- Night doctors 2000 -- "The fame she so richly deserves" 1970-1973 -- Part Three: Immortality -- "It's alive" 1973-1974 -- "Least they can do" 1975 -- "Who told you you could sell my spleen?" 1976-1988 -- Breach of privacy 1980-1985 -- The secret of immortality 1984-1995 -- After London 1996-1999 -- A village of Henriettas 2000 -- Zakariyya 2000 -- Hela, goddess of death 2000-2001 -- "All that's my mother" 2001 -- The hospital for the Negro insane 2001 -- The medical records 2001 -- Soul cleansing 2001 -- Heavenly bodies 2001 -- "Nothing to be scared about" 2001 -- The long road to Clover 2009 -- Where they are now -- About the Henrietta Lacks Foundation -- Afterword -- Cast of characters -- Timeline -- Reading group guide.

Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, 2010; Wellcome Trust Book Prize, 2010.