Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez Published by Penguin on April 4, 2023
Genres: Fiction / African American & Black / Historical, Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Women
Pages: 384
Format: eBook
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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 WenchMontgomery, 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.”—Essence
This is a book you sit with. It reminds me a lot, tangentially, of Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain, which I also found thanks to The Book Girls Guide. This book was a good reminder that there are more books out there about the eugenics programs in the US that I want to read. There are also some about Nazi Germany that I are on the old TBR as well. Take My Hand is set in Alabama, same general time frame, based (loosely but absolutely not the same) on a lawsuit regarding involuntary sterilizations of young women, actual children, not adults, without proper education or consent. This wasn’t just happening in the South, and honestly, it’s still happening now. Different set-up, different chaos but it’s still out there. Poor women, minority women, poor minority women are the targets. And while books are historically written about it, it’s not just history. It’s just rebranded.
I guess we should talk about the book before I get too caught up in my emotions. I loved this book: the depth of the characters, the way the story wove between then and nowish (2016, so a decade back). I felt so much of how they must have felt for experiencing something I can’t begin to imagine. I did get bogged down a time or two in the conversations, the back and forth, but I also knew it was absolutely needed to accurately tell the story, the whole story, just not one person’s version. I will say it probably would have created more of a struggle if I was reading but audiobook for the win there. It was a lot but it flowed naturally. Emotionally, this book really did get me. Erica and India were literally children having their biological choices removed from them. Being given the birth control shot at 11 and 13, India not even having started her monthly cycle yet! Being given sanitary napkins but never told how to properly use them. And a father and grandmother who, through no fault of their own, didn’t know enough (because they were never told!) to understand what was being done to the girls. As a society, we have done so much evil. Yes, those emotions include a lot of anger.
I talked about this a bit in Necessary Lies, but eugenics had the chance to alter my Dad’s life. He had seizures due to a birth injury, had experimental surgery, and no more seizures. But there was a law in Missouri when the Old Folks got married that, technically, not enforced, prevented someone with epilepsy from getting married. Can’t have them procreating after all! While I knew the story about the law in Missouri, I mean, I grew up with the family joke that their marriage wasn’t technically legal- I didn’t realize until earlier this year the extent this type of thing went across the US and even the world. This is something I think everyone should learn about, as it’s something that continues to be repeated in different ways even today. Having autonomy taken from you, not voluntarily given, is just vile. Expect more books like this in the future; not sure when, but there’s a list.
About Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench (2010), Balm (2015),Take My Hand (2022), and most recently Happy Land (2025) which was awarded the 2026 Southern Book Prize and named one of two 2026 BCALA Honor Books. It was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
Happy Land appeared on many “Most Anticipated” lists for 2025, including People, Elle, Reader’s Digest, Woman’s World, and elsewhere.
Take My Hand was a finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award and named a Top 20 Book of the Year by the Editors at Amazon. It was awarded the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Fiction and the 2023 BCALA Award for Fiction. The audiobook version of Take My Hand was named a Best of 2022 by Audible.
The American Bar Association awarded Take My Hand its prestigious Silver Gavel Award which recognizes an “outstanding work that fosters the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system.”
In 2011, Wench was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and in 2017, HarperCollins released Wench as one of eight “Olive Titles,” limited edition modern classics that included books by Edward P. Jones, Louise Erdrich, and Zora Neale Hurston.
In 2013, Dolen wrote the introduction to a special edition of Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave, published by Simon & Schuster, which became a New York Times bestseller. She followed that with an introduction to Elizabeth Keckly’s Behind the Scenes, published in 2016, and the 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell’s 1984 published by Penguin Random House in 2023.
A graduate of Harvard College, Dolen is a three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship and has established herself as a pre-eminent chronicler of American historical life.
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