Dolen Perkins-Valdez Reads from Take My Hand
From Damian Barr’s Literary Salon Podcast
Damian Barr’s Literary Salon tempts the world’s best writers to read exclusively from their latest greatest works and share their own personal stories. Star guests include Jojo Moyes, John Waters, Yaa Gyasi, Mary Beard, Diana Athill and Louis de Bernières—all in front of a live audience at leading glamorous locations world-wide. Our London home is the Savoy. Suave salonnière Damian Barr is your host.
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This week’s reading comes to us from Dolen Perkins-Valdez, the New York Times bestselling author of Wench. Her timely new novel, Take My Hand, will get under your skin and stay with you long after the last page.
Montgomery, Alabama. 1973. Civil Townsend works at the Family Planning Clinic and has big plans to make a difference in her community, helping Black women make their own choices for their lives and bodies. But when she discovers the injections they’re giving young women are still experimental, she questions the motives of the clinic. Inspired by true events and a shocking chapter of American history, Take My Hand is a novel that will open your eyes and break your heart.
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This podcast is edited and produced by Megan Bay Dorman, and programmed by Matt Casbourne.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench and Balm. She was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and she was awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in Washington, DC with her family.
