NPR's Book of the Day cover image

Dolen Perkins-Valdez's historical novel fictionalizes involuntary sterilizations

NPR's Book of the Day

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Civil Townsend and the Williams Family

I never found anything about those nurses. And i just wondered, who were they? What must it have been like to be a nurse working at that clinic and have something like this happen under your watch? I just needed to answer that queston and that's why i wrote this character, cyvil townsend. She becomes so carried away her good intentions that she stops listening to what the family really needs. One way that we get it wrong is that we aren't listening. But part of her maturation process at this period in her life is understanding that she doesn't have all the answers.

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