US and UK deals for Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s “Take My Hand”

The next novel from the bestselling author of Wench has been picked up in the US by Berkeley in a major, two-book deal, and in the UK by Phoenix/Orion.

Take My Hand will tell the riveting and courageous story of Civil Townsend, a nurse in Alabama during the 1970’s, who uncovers an unspeakable wrong. She finds to her horror that the Williams sisters, two of her young patients, have been forcibly sterilized, and Civil vows to get to the bottom of the atrocity. What she finds is that this is not an isolated case, and she embarks upon a burning pursuit for justice.

Based loosely on the true story of the Relf sisters, who were forcibly sterilized at 12 and 14 years old at a federally-funded clinic, Take My Hand not only tells a harrowing story, but raises questions of ethics and culpability in a society in which the poor, Black and disabled are deemed unfit for motherhood.