Take My Hand

Description

Winner of the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction

“Deeply empathetic yet unflinching in its gaze…an unforgettable exploration of responsibility and redemption.”—Celeste Ng

Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a searing and compassionate new novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible injustice done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench

Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her along a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin, Civil is shocked to learn that her new patients, Erica and India, are children—just eleven and thirteen 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 their 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.

Inspired by true events and brimming with hope, Take My Hand is a stirring exploration of accountability and redemption.

“Highlights the horrific discrepancies in our healthcare system and illustrates their heartbreaking consequences.”—EssenceNAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2022 BY Newsweek ∙ San Francisco Chronicle ∙ Essence ∙ Yahoo! News ∙ The Nerd Daily ∙ Daily Mail ∙ Electric Literature ∙ BookBub ∙ Ms. Magazine ∙ BuzzFeed ∙ Parade ∙ Oprah Daily ∙ NBC News ∙ and more!

“It’s a haunting tale of how the actions of government agencies aren’t innocent of racism, injustice, or abuse, emotional and physical, of Black people in America. Valdez offers beautifully written prose, gripping dialogue, and unforgettable characters. Take My Hand is another remarkable must-read by Dolen Perkins-Valdez – it and deserves every accolade it’s getting.”—NPR

“Perhaps the most notable of this book’s gifts are its deft packaging of history and its quiet nod—in the juxtaposition of timelines—to the reproductive oppression haunting Black women to this day. Like the most effective education, though, it feels that the information is streaming through the heart, awakening it and inspiring it to action.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A jewel of a book…Perkins-Valdez’s grasp of large historical themes is matched by her attention to her characters’ lives, their existence so meticulously rendered that you can smell the fetid air of the Williams’s country hovel and the scent of the girls freshly bathed and slathered with cocoa butter….Take My Hand reminds us that truly extraordinary fiction is rarely written merely to entertain…Perkins-Valdez has done a fine job of building a structure and scaffolding that will not only endure but also bear the weight of future writers yearning to bring the past to readers afresh.”—Washington Post

“[An] impressive historical epic. Valdez’s story and characters are deeply affecting and call attention to the importance of recognizing history’s dark moments.”—Newsweek

“Engrossing from the start….Throughout the novel, detailed descriptions command rapt attention. Between its sizable length and the immense amount of research and history poured into its more than 350 pages, Take My Hand is an excellent example of a Big Ambitious Novel by a 21st-century woman.”—The Associated Press

“A searing and ultimately hopeful novel about (in)justice and the importance of learning from history.”—Ms. Magazine

“An unforgettable novel about horrendous wrongs and the choice to fight back against them.”—BuzzFeed

“In her newest novel, Dolen Perkins-Valdez probes the many ways institutional racism and classism inflicts lasting scars, especially on young Black women—and the grace, courage, and love needed to begin to heal those wounds. Deeply empathetic yet unflinching in its gaze, Take My Hand is an unforgettable exploration of responsibility and redemption, the dangers of good intentions, and the folly of believing anyone can decide what’s best for another’s life.”
—Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

“Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a brilliant writer in a class all by herself. I love her voice and how she makes the past feel immediate and relevant, because it is.”
—Terry McMillan, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Take My Hand is a gem: one of those rare and beautiful novels that walks the balance beam of heartbreak and hope.  Dolen Perkins-Valdez demonstrates once again the way she can breathe life into history through fiction that adds deep and profound meaning to the past — and makes its relevance to the present meaningful and clear.”
—Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of The Flight Attendant and Hour of the Witch

“When you know Dolen Perkins-Valdez is writing a book, you know that it is going to be a spectacular thing. And that is the case with Take My Hand. Conveyed as softly as a familial conversation, this is a work that makes difficult things endurable. Perkins-Valdez relays untold pain honestly, astutely, but most of all, gently, like a sage would. That is another way of saying that she crafts this book with great truth and wisdom. As a result, Take My Hand is the kind of rare, elevating, illuminating, useful art that we would all do well to grasp for dear life.”
—Robert Jones, Jr., New York Times bestselling author of The Prophets

“Take My Hand will break your heart and lift your soul. A young nurse with big dreams of helping her community comes to an Alabama clinic and is immediately embroiled in the lives of two young Black girls, caught first in the trap of rural poverty and then in the spotlight of a national court case as their mistreatment at the clinic’s hands comes out into the open. Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a consummate storyteller: profound, transcendent, heart-wrenching.”
—Kate Quinn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code

“Moving, important, and timely, Take My Hand is both a poignant personal story and a riveting courtroom drama. By refusing to accept the status quo, big-hearted, idealistic Civil Townsend sets events in motion that eventually change hearts, minds, and lives, including her own. A perfect book-club pick.”
—Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Exiles

“Perkins-Valdez’s latest is a piercing look into a shameful moment in America’s history, and could not be more timely. Her electrifying, masterful novel brims with fierce compassion and deserves attention and accolades galore. I will be recommending it to everyone I know.”
—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue

“This powerful novel finds the humanity in one of the most inhumane chapters of American history. Take My Hand will enrage you. It will illuminate you. It just might redeem you. In the process, it will take your breath away. I don’t say this often, but it’s a must-read.“
—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“Based on a heart-wrenching true tale of injustice, Take My Hand is a poignant novel that transports the reader to Montgomery, Alabama in the early 1970s and culminates in a dramatic court case against coerced sterilizations. As always, Perkins-Valdez writes with sensitivity, grace and a world-weary wisdom that breaks you before putting you together again. This is a powerful and unforgettable novel that will linger long after you’ve closed the cover.” 
—Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author of The Women of Chateau Lafayette

“Dolen Perkins Valdez takes a moment in our history that has been hidden inside the folds of time and she brings those heinous acts back into the light. This is a riveting story of one woman’s fight against a system that believes it has the right to determine who should give birth in this country and who should not. Civil Townsend’s plight as she seeks justice is heartbreaking, but also inspiring, reminding us that one woman can stand and make a difference. Beautifully written in typical Dolen Perkins Valdez’s style, I didn’t put this book down until I closed the last page and even then, I wanted more.” 
—Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling author of The Personal Librarian

“Delicate and poetic, Dolen manages to fuse beauty and tragedy in her work, which makes her a masterful storyteller and gifted writer. In this story, Dolen speaks eloquently for those who, in being denied the right of having a choice and agency over their bodies, have lost their voice. This haunting tale, captured through the lens of an unforgettable narrator and a cast of memorable characters, will stay with you for a very, very long time.” 
—Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of bestselling novels Patsy and Here Comes the Sun

“Inspired by true events this story highlights the horrific discrepancies in our healthcare system and illustrates their heartbreaking consequences.”—Essence

“A heart-wrenching page-turner as relevant as ever, Perkins-Valdez presents a smart way in for Americans ready to illuminate history’s darkest corners so that we may forward meaningful change in the present.”—The AV Club

“…shot through with spirit and hope, it’s one hell of a book.”—Stylist (UK)

“Perkins-Valdez’s narrative, though tragic, brims with hope as one woman refuses to be silenced.”—Elle (UK)

“An utterly gripping tale from start to finish, Take My Hand is storytelling at its finest.”—Glamour (UK)

“Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Take My Hand Reaches for Hard Truths”—Publishers Weekly (feature)

“There’s nothing better than settling down to read a novel and immediately sensing that you’re in the hands of a gifted storyteller.”—Bookpage (starred review)

“This powerful, timely novel is an excellent choice for bookclubs, as well as for readers of contemporary fiction featuring strong female characters.”—Booklist

“Vividly highlights the deep and lasting impact of injustice.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Dolen Perkins-Valdez pens a powerfully emotional tale that calls upon the many ways Black women create sisterhoods. The strength and courage the characters exhibit will stay with readers for a long time.”—Sisters from AARPDolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench and Balm. She was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and she was awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in Washington, DC with her family.

One

 

Memphis

 

2016

 

A year never passes without me thinking of them. India. Erica. Their names are stitched inside every white coat I have ever worn. I tell this story to stitch their names inside your clothes, too. A reminder to never forget. Medicine has taught me, really taught me, to accept the things I cannot change. A difficult-to-swallow serenity prayer. I’m not trying to change the past. I’m telling it in order to lay these ghosts to rest.

 

You paint feverishly, like Mama. Yet you got the steadfastness of Daddy. Your talents surely defy the notion of a gene pool. I watch you now, home from college, that time after graduation when y’all young people either find your way or slide down the slope of uncertainty. You’re sitting on the porch nuzzling the dog, a gray mutt of a pit bull who was once sent to die after snapping at a man’s face. In the six years we’ve had him, he has been more skittish than fierce, as if aware that one wrong look will spell his doom. What I now know is that kind of certainty, dire as it may be, is a gift.

 

The dog groans as you seek the right place to scratch. I wish someone would scratch me like that. Such exhaustion in my bones. I will be sixty-seven this year, but it is time. I’m ready to work in my yard, feel the damp earth between my fingers, sit with my memories like one of those long-tailed magpies whose wings don’t flap like they used to. These days, I wake up and want to roll right over and go back to sleep for another hour. Yes, it is time.

 

Two weeks ago, I heard the news that India is very sick. I’m not sure what ails her, but I take this as a sign that it’s time to head south. I know what it looks like. No, I am not going to save her. No, I don’t harbor some fanciful notion that she’ll be the first and last patient of my career. I have prayed about that. Please, Lord, reveal my heart to me.

 

I call your name, and you look back through the screen into the kitchen. You’re used to my hovering, though each year you need me less and less, and I mourn the slipping. Soon it will be just me and the dog, an old lady muttering in that rambling, crazy way owners talk to their pets when no one is around.

 

But before we both head into that next chapter, we need to talk. You and I always have been open with each other. As soon as you were old enough to wonder, I told you everything I knew about your birth parents. I told how you came into my life, about the gift of our family.

 

I told you the story of your parentage, but what I didn’t reveal was the story of your lineage. How you came to be. How you came out of a long line of history that defies biology. What I am trying to say is that your story is tied up with those sisters. The story of my welcoming you into my life, of my decision not to marry or bear children, is complicated. I have tried not to burden you, but I’m beginning to believe that not telling you the whole truth, letting you walk this earth without truly understanding this history, has done you a disservice.

 

I reach into the pocket of my dress and pull out the paper. Without opening it, I know what it says because I have memorized the address, mapped out the directions on my cell phone, and I know the route I will take. The car is gassed up, the snacks tucked into a backpack. The last of my carefully packed wardrobe capsules are squared off in a suitcase that sits behind the door. The only thing I have not done is tell you where I am going or why. You know a little about the sisters, about the case that engulfed the country, but you don’t know the whole story. And it is time for me to tell you.

 

“Anne?” I call your name again. This time, I wave you inside.

 

two

 

Montgomery

 

1973

 

There were eight of us. When I think back to the time I spent at the clinic, I cannot help but stumble over that number. What might have been. What could have passed. None of us will ever know. I suppose I will still be asking the same question when I’m standing over my own grave. But back then, all we knew was that we had a job to do. Ease the burdens of poverty. Stamp it with both feet. Push in the pain before it exploded. What we didn’t know was that there would be skin left on the playground after it was all over and done with.

 

In March 1973, nine months after graduation, I landed my first job at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic. On the day I started, two other newly hired nurses, Val and Alicia, began with me, the three of us like soldiers showing up for duty. Hair straightened. Uniforms starched. Shoes polished. Caps squared. Child, you couldn’t tell us nothing.

 

Our supervisor was a tall woman by the name of Linda Seager. I swear that woman had three eyes. Nothing escaped her notice. Despite her stone face, a part of me couldn’t help but admire her. After all, she was a white woman working in a clinic serving poor Black women. Trying to do the right thing. And doing that kind of work required a certain level of commitment.

 

“Congratulations. You are now official employees of the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic.”

 

And with that, the training was over. One week. A fifty-page orientation manual, half of which concerned cleaning the rooms and the toilet, and keeping the supply closet organized. We had spent three days just going over that part. Long enough to question if we’d been hired as maids or nurses. On day four, we finally covered charting patients and protocol. When the more experienced nurses noticed our downcast expressions in the break room, they promised to help us in our first few weeks. We were in this together.

 

As we dispersed, Mrs. Seager pointed a finger at me. “Civil.”

 

“Yes, Mrs. Seager?”

 

She pointed to my fingernails with a frown, then retreated to her office. I held up a hand. They did need a clipping. I hid my hands in my pockets.

 

The three of us new hires squeezed into the break room and removed our purses from the shelf. One of the nurses nudged me gently with an elbow. She’d introduced herself earlier in the week as Alicia Downs. She was about my age, born and raised in a small town up near Huntsville. I’d known girls like her at Tuskegee, pie-faced country girls whose wide-eyed innocence contrasted my more citified self.

 

“I don’t think it’s real,” she said.

 

“What?”

 

She pointed to her own head. “That red helmet she call hair. It ain’t moved an inch in five days.”

 

“Look like a spaceship,” I whispered. Alicia covered her mouth with a hand, and I caught a glimpse of something. She’d been putting on an act all week in front of Mrs. Seager. Alicia might have been country, but she was far from timid.

 

“I bet if you poked a finger in it, you’d draw back a nub,” she said.

 

The other nurse glanced at us, and I rearranged my face. Val Brinson was older than me and Alicia by at least a decade.

 

“You crazy, Alicia Downs,” I told her as we walked outside. “She might have heard you.”

 

“You look at your file yet?”

 

I took a yellow envelope from my bag. I had been assigned one off-site case: two young girls. Nothing in the case jumped out at me other than wondering what on earth an eleven-year-old would need with birth control. According to the file, she and her sister had received their first shot three months ago and were due for the next one.

 

“You got anybody interesting?” she asked.

 

I wanted to tell her that was a dumb question. This wasn’t a talent search. Alicia had been trained as a nurse at Good Samaritan in Selma. She was pretty in a plain way, and there was a ready smile beneath her features. At one point, Mrs. Seager had asked, What do you find so funny, Miss Downs? and Alicia had answered, Nothing, ma’am. I just felt a sneeze coming on. Then her face had gone dull and blank. Mrs. Seager glared at her for a moment before continuing with her instructions on how to properly clean a bathroom toilet in a medical facility.

 

“Not really.” I didn’t know how much I was allowed to reveal about my cases. Mrs. Seager hadn’t said much of anything about privacy. “Two school-age girls on birth control shots.”

 

“Well, I’ve got a woman with six kids.”

 

“Six?”

 

“You heard right.”

 

“Well, you better make it over there quick before it’s seven.”

 

“You got that right. Well, I’ll be seeing you.” Alicia waved to me and I waved back.

 

I’ll be honest and tell you there was a time I was uppity. I’m not going to lie about that. My daddy raised me with a certain kind of pride. We lived on Centennial Hill, down the road from Alabama State, and all my life I’d been surrounded by educated people. Our arrogance was a shield against the kind of disdain that did not have the capacity to even conceive of Black intellect. We discussed Fanon and Baldwin at dinner, debated Du Bois and Washington, spoke admiringly of Angela Davis. When somebody Black like Sammy Davis Jr. came on TV, it was cause for a family gathering.

 

But from the very first day I met Alicia, she ignored my airs and opened up to me. As I watched her walk away, I knew we would be fast friends.

 

I’d parked a block and a half away on Holcombe Street to hide my car. Daddy had given me a brand-new Dodge Colt as a graduation gift, and I was shy about anyone at the clinic seeing it. Most of the nurses took the bus. Mrs. Seager had assigned me two sisters way out in the sticks because she knew I had a reliable set of wheels.

 

“Civil?”

 

Oh Lord, what did she want now? I turned to face Mrs. Seager.

 

“Might I have a word?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

She went back inside the building and let the screen door slam shut behind her. A gust of warm air swirled around me. I could swear that woman surged fire when she spoke. There had been scary professors at Tuskegee, so she wasn’t the first dragon I’d met. Professor Boyd had told us if we were so much as two minutes late, he would mark down our grades. Professor McKinney divided the class between women and men and dared us to even think about glancing over to the other side. That kind of meanness I could handle. The thing that bothered me about Mrs. Seager was that I always had the sense I could mess up without knowing how.

 

Inside the building, the reception desk was empty. I positioned my cap and smoothed the front of my dress before knocking on her door. She had taken the trouble to not only go back into her office but to close the door behind her.

 

“Come in,” she called.

 

The clinic had formerly been a three-bedroom house. She’d converted the smallest bedroom into her office. The other two were examination rooms. The old kitchen was now a break room for staff, the living and dining spaces served as a reception and waiting area. From the back of the building we could hear the roar of the new highway behind us.

 

Bookshelves lined one side of Mrs. Seager’s office, file cabinets the other. On the wall behind her desk hung at least a dozen community awards. Rotary Club Woman of the Year. Junior League Lifetime Member. The surfaces were clutter-free. On top of the desk sat a cup of pencils, the sharpened points turned up. She cradled a file in her hands.

 

“Sit down.”

 

“Yes, Mrs. Seager.” I took a seat. The window was open and a sparrow was chirping insistently.

 

“I understand your father is a doctor in town.”

 

I could now see that she was holding my employment file. When I tried to speak, I coughed instead.

 

“Are you sick?”

 

“No, ma’am.”

 

“Because in our profession we have to maintain our own health in order to help other people. You must rest and eat properly at all times.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

“Very well. So your father is a doctor.” She said this as a matter of fact.

 

I knew what she was about to say. The same thing my professors at Tuskegee had lectured when they discovered my father and grandfather were doctors. Your marks are impressive. Of course, as a woman, you have other issues to consider. Starting a family, for instance. You have wisely chosen the nursing profession, Miss Townsend. I never knew what to say when they sounded off like that. The beginnings of a compliment always ended up stinging like an insult. Usually, I mumbled something incoherent and wondered if I was just being too sensitive.

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

“We have been sanctioned by the federal government to execute our duties. We must take our mission very seriously. A wheel cannot work without its spokes. We are the spokes of that wheel.”

 

Alicia was right. The woman’s hair didn’t budge.

 

“What I’m saying to you, Civil, is that you are a smart girl. It’s why I hired you. I have high expectations of you because I think you’ll make a fine nurse someday. I don’t want you to go getting ideas.”

 

She had just paid me a compliment, but it sounded strange in my ears. “Ideas about what, ma’am?”

 

She frowned and, for a moment, I worried that my tone had slipped into insolence. “About your place in all this. You have to work together with your fellow nurses. Our mission is to help poor people who cannot help themselves.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” I sat quietly, digesting her words. My daddy had made sure that I was educated not only in my books but also, as he had once described it, in the code that dictated our lives in Alabama. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut. Picking your battles. Letting them think what they wanted because you weren’t going to change their minds about certain things. It was a tough lesson, but I’d heeded it well enough to get some of the things I wanted out of life. Like this job, for instance. The woman is just trying to pay you a compliment, Civil. Show her you can gracefully accept it.

US

Additional information

Dimensions	0.9900 × 5.2200 × 7.9500 in
Imprint	Berkley
ISBN-13	09780593337714
ISBN-10	0593337719
Author	Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	FIC019000, FIC049040
Subjects	books by black authors, black authors books, black women books, books for black women, wench, roe vs. wade, FIC049040, nurse books, nurse gifts, best books, historical fiction best sellers, african american authors, historical fiction books, historical novels, african american books, historical, Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights, historical novel, black authors, black authors best sellers, womens fiction, books for women, historical fiction, gifts for women, african american history, gifts for mom, book club books, FIC019000, african american