Dolen Perkins-Valdez, “Take My Hand”

Beyond the Next Chapter with Whitney Clark

Historical fiction at its finest, TAKE MY HAND is a fictional retelling of a truly shocking practice in Alabama in the early 1970s: the forced sterilization of poor, mostly Black, women and girls.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez joins the podcast to talk with Olivia about the moving novel, told from the perspective of Civil Townsend, a nurse at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, who must advocate for her patients in ways she never expected. After researching the history of the time and events, she approached the fiction with an emotional question: “What would it have been like to be a nurse at that time, under your watch…and how do you live with yourself?”

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a New York Times bestselling author, Chair of the Board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, and an Associate Professor of Literature at American University.

For more on the author visit: https://dolenperkinsvaldez.com/