Review of Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

A little foray into historical fiction, don’t mind if I do, courtesy of a friend lending me Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. It combines some very real history of experimentation (Tuskegee) and sterilization of Black and Indigenous women in the US (and Canada!) with fictional characters whose flaws propel the story forward in interesting dimensions. The result should be more compelling than it is; however, I still found a lot to like about it.

Civil Townsend starts her new job as as nurse at a family planning centre in Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. When she realizes, however, that she’s unwittingly complicit in the sterilization of Black women and girls without their informed consent, she decides to do something about it. But that something will catapult two of her most vulnerable charges—girls not even yet women—into the spotlight. And Civil herself has a lot of growing up to do, a lot to reckon with, even as she charges ahead, convinced she knows what’s what and what’s right. Meanwhile, in the present day, a much older Civil returns to Montgomery for the first time in decades to reunite with old faces and reminisce about the past—and her mistakes.

Civil is a rich and very complex narrator. The Civil of the main story, young Civil, is headstrong and cocky. She’s no stranger to racism and misogynoir, yet she has been sheltered by the privilege of growing up the daughter of a successful doctor. When she first meets Erica and India, who are literally dirt poor, it is a shock, a wake-up call, that reverberates throughout the entire book for her. There are times when Civil is not a likeable character—and I love that. I appreciate her more as a protagonist for the flaws Perkins-Valdez gives her as a way to avert the saviour trope.

Indeed, I think the power of this book lies in how it demolishes the idea that action is synonymous with change, or that political change automatically leads to positive change for the most vulnerable. This is most evident in the frame story, which reveals Erica and India’s ultimate fates. Despite their status as the poster-children of the scandal that rocked Montgomery and made it all the way to DC, Erica and India don’t seem to benefit directly from that notoriety. Their lives remain difficult. The harm that they experienced still hasn’t been remedied. I didn’t actually like the frame story when I read the book. I thought it was redundant. Yet as I write this review, I find myself appreciating it more. Older Civil needed to close the loop.

In this way, a lot of Take My Hand feels like a breath being held across decades only to be released, like a reluctant punctuation mark at the end of a very long sentence, a final full stop that says, “What were you expecting? A miracle?” This is not an inspirational story in the vein of Remember the Titans. It is, however, a very honest story, for reproductive injustice has always been inextricably mixed with structural racism in the US and Canada. Every time a new horror comes to light, the same thing that happens in this novel happens in society: there is shock and handwringing from us well-meaning white folx, then there are investigations and inquiries, and eventually—years later—a report, its executive summary itself summarized one night by the news before everyone involved files it away to gather dust, never to actually be acted upon.

There is a cynicism, in this sense, to Take My Hand. Civil’s change of profession is in many ways a cynical one. It’s a giving in, an acknowledgement of what everyone else was calling her destiny from day one. It’s also a surrender or retreat, as Civil realized she could no longer countenance being a nurse if that was the standard of care many institutions might expect her to uphold. At the same time, one could also read her career change as an act of courage, a way of campaigning as directly and ardently for a reduction in Black maternal mortality.

Take My Hand is in turns a challenging book, a difficult book, and a necessary book. There are times when I found myself wanting a lot more from the characterization. Perkins-Valdez relies too much on subtext, in my opinion, to do the heavy lifting of subplots like Civil’s mother’s depression. The narrative is so intensely focused on Civil that it struggles sometimes to acknowledge the vividness of the world around her, and this myopia limits the story’s impact. It’s powerful, yet I am not sure it’s all that memorable.

While I recommend this book for those who might otherwise never seek out the nonfictional equivalents that discuss the Tuskegee experiment, sterilization, and other episodes of genocide, I do strongly encourage readers to read beyond this book. A grand and moving starting place, Take My Hand is a thoughtful meditation on the limitations of one woman trying to do good—but it’s only a place to start.