How One Novel Exposes Medical Injustice with Dolen Perkins-Valdez
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What is the true story behind the Relf sisters and how did it inspire the novel?
Hey everyone, it's Emily. Just wanted to drop you a quick reminder that the Nocturnist is going to be at South by Southwest this year. We're really excited to be presenting a panel on the theme of shaman medicine on Sunday, March 12th at 1130 AM Austin, Texas time. So if anybody listening is going to be at South by Southwest, we invite you to come to our panel. We'd love to meet you and don't forget to tell your friends. Now on to the episode. Support for the Nocturnist comes from the California Medical Association.
At the Nocturinous, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
You're listening to the Nocturnous Conversations. I'm Emily Silverman. As healthcare workers, we have so many amazing tools at our disposal. We have medications, procedures, surgeries, even narratives and data and counseling that we use to help people with their health. But the scary thing is, having these tools means we can also cause way more harm than we ever could have before we entered the profession. We have to be constantly checking ourselves. Are we doing the right thing? Are we helping? Are we harming? Especially when there are so many examples from past and present of medicine inflicting harm on people. One of those examples is the story of the Ralph Sisters, two poor black girls in Alabama who were sterilized against their will by a federally funded health clinic in 1973.
It's a story I didn't know much about, but it was the inspiration behind today's guest's latest novel, Take My Hand, which explores how something like that could have happened through the eyes of its main character, a black nurse named Sybil Townsend. The author is the amazing Dolan Perkins Valdez, the New York Times bestselling author of two other novels called Wench and Balm. Dolan was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards, the Hearst and Wright Legacy Award for Fiction, and was awarded the first novelist award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in DC with her family. I really enjoyed this conversation with Dolan, in which we explored themes of informed consent, the shadow side of good intentions, ambivalence about motherhood, and the role of fiction in creating social change.
Before I sat down with Dolan, I asked her to read an excerpt from her amazing book, Take My Hand. Here stolen.
A year never passes without me thinking of them. India, Arica. 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 mamma. 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 mud of a pit bull who was once sensed to die after snappin' 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 know now 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'll be sixty seven this year, but it's 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 back over and go back to sleep for another hour. Yes, it's time, said 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.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the true story behind the Relf sisters and how did it inspire the novel?
0:00–9:33
2
How did Dolen Perkins‑Valdez discover the Relf case and decide to write about it?
9:33–17:47
3
What research sources and primary documents did the author use to build the narrative?
17:47–24:21
4
How did the author imagine the perspective of a Black nurse working at the clinic?
24:21–30:43
5
What changes did the author make to the real‑life events for the novel’s characters?
30:43–36:28
6
How does the novel explore themes of informed consent, motherhood, and medical ethics?
36:28–39:53