Intuition
by Allegra Goodman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Allegra GoodmanEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-02-28
ISBN: 0385336128
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: The Dial Press
Book Reviews of Intuition
Book Review: "Championing the truth."
Summary: 5 Stars
Allegra Goodman's stunning and unforgettable novel, "Intuition," takes place in the claustrophobic world of a Cambridge, Massachusetts cancer research laboratory. Scientists and technicians work day and night in the Philpott Institute, extracting DNA, examining cells, tending to the lab animals, preparing solutions, and compiling masses of data. The postdocs are exhausted and underpaid, but they dream of that one phenomenal discovery that will make their countless hours of drudgery worthwhile.
The lab directors are Sandy Glass and Marion Mendelssohn. Marion is a principled, imaginative, and creative scientist, as well as a woman of unshakeable integrity. Sandy is a charismatic schmoozer, whose specialty is glad-handing wealthy donors, writing grants, and handling the media. One of the young researchers, Cliff Bannaker, has been floundering of late. For years, he has experimented with a virus that he hoped would transform cancerous cells into normal cells. Much to Cliff's displeasure, his supervisors have ordered him to discontinue his fruitless and expensive research.
Everything changes when Xiang Feng, one of the postdocs, notices that a variation of Cliff's virus, R-7, seems to have shrunk tumors in mice. Could Cliff have finally stumbled on a revolutionary cancer treatment? Marion, a cautious woman by nature, is reluctant to publicize Cliff's work prematurely, but the more aggressive Sandy wants to forge ahead, certain that Cliff's success will mean additional funding for the cash-starved laboratory. Robin Decker, Cliff's former lover, suspects that his findings are too good to be true. She decides to make her doubts public, thus exposing Philpott and its employees to possible ruin and making herself a pariah among her peers.
Goodman's lucid and evocative prose beautifully captures the scientists' complex and often contradictory personalities. Although each character is unique and fully delineated, the cast of "Intuition" is, in some ways, a microcosm of humanity, with its arrogance and humility, optimism and despair, conscientiousness and recklessness, courage and cowardice, vengefulness and forgiveness. The laboratory is a place where individuals yearn to stand out from the crowd, to grab their fifteen minutes of fame and glory, sometimes destroying themselves and others in the process. Rather than being a pure and altruistic endeavor to seek out the truth, scientific inquiry in America often degenerates into a contest, with the prize being government funding, publication in important journals, national publicity, and perhaps even a Nobel Prize. As one of the characters so aptly states: "There's big bucks out there, and where there's money like that there is no such thing as academic freedom or independent inquiry."
Allegra Goodman meticulously describes the harrowing life of cancer researchers who are under enormous pressure to produce results. "Intuition" is an incisive, intelligent, and compelling novel, as well as a cautionary tale about what happens when pure science is polluted by ambition.
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