By Allegra Goodman
Dial Press, 345 pages
Available at Powerbooks
For those familiar with the work of Allegra Goodman in The New Yorker and Commentary, her shift to short stories (Total Immersion and The Family Markowitz) and novels (Kaaterskill Falls and Paradise Park) was more than a welcome expansion of her talent. Finding the funny in the familiar and being a very shrewd and keen observer of human behavior and frailties, she has written a collection of interlocking stories – The Family Markowitz, and her first novel, Kaaterskill Falls – which are pitch perfect expositions of her innate writing ability. While some made issue with the accessibility of her fiction writing, given how they were centered on the milieu of the contemporary Jewish family, I was always amazed by how she would transcend that milieu and find the universal, the very real and human without losing focus on the detail that gave her writing exceptional texture.
Like a social anthropologist, she trains her eye on whatever social grouping she is writing about – dissect, explore and examine – then finds the right words and phrases to bring them home to us. Without waxing overly lyrical or sentimental, she gives her writing an emotional punch that from a very young age (Total Immersion was published when she was 21) belied the maturity and depth we now expect from her as a given.
Goodman’s new novel is Intuition, and it’s as good a read as you can expect this summer. This time out, she sets her sights on the scientific research community, placing them on a Petri dish, to tease out the very human elements that inevitably plays a part in the way this community thrives and interacts. It’s great because it shows a side to this community that is often downplayed or ignored, given that the stereotypical approach is to characterize this community as dispassionate and exact, given the demands of scientific inquiry.
The setting for Intuition is the Philpott Institute, a research facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is headed by oncologist Sandy Glass and research specialist Marion Mendelssohn. Dependent on private funding and government grants in order to survive, the work to keeping the Institute afloat is clearly delineated. Glamour doctor and larger-than-life Sandy handles all the PR, glad-handing and fund-raising activities, while Marion handles the sober research side that will put Philpott on the scientific radar. At this juncture we are introduced to the Institute and its heads. Research on white mice and the effects of R7 on the cancer tumors that have been introduced into the mice are at the forefront of the facility’s activities.
Postdoctoral protégé Cliff Banaker seems to be on the brink of some very exciting news on how R7 has markedly reduced, if not eliminated, these tumors on his specimens. At one level, the novel now takes on the inner struggle between Glass and Mendelssohn. Glass is ever ready to jump the gun and spread the news as he’s only too aware how instrumental this would be in raising fresh grants and funding. Mendelssohn, ever the dutiful scientist, tries to shield these preliminary findings from the world-at-large. Matters become complicated as fellow research doctor Robin Decker encounters problems replicating the results of boyfriend Cliff. At this point, the whole question of whether Cliff "cheated" (whether intentionally or not) on his findings rears its ugly head. And naturally, as Glass is more than eager to confirm Cliff’s findings because of the impact it may make on his success for raising fresh money, ethical and procedural issues arise.
The first half of the book is taken up with complex shifting of allegiances and relationships among those who work in the institute. We see the loneliness of the researcher, the stark contrast between Glass and those who work at the institute. Unlike those devoted purely to research, Glass also holds clinic at a nearby hospital and carries something of a savior-complex given his interaction with cancer patients. We meet the families of Sandy and Marion, running flush against the type of spouses each would have and how their children can either embrace or reject fully following in their parents’ career paths. Sandy has three daughters, while Marion has a son, and it is really beautiful how Goodman fleshes out each of these minor characters. This is done to the extent that each daughter of Sandy’s is a complete personality etched in our minds as we traverse through the pages of this novel.
The second half of the book implodes as the outside world – media and government (via politicians) – impinges on this cocooned world of research with devastating results. Media is, as always, a circus. When People magazine shows up at the doorstep of the institute, as arranged by Sandy, they immediately hone in on fellow researcher Xiang Feng, using his photo as the lead-in of the article. Media savvy dictates that as a Chinese immigrant, he makes so much better copy than the all-American Cliff. This adds extra complications for Xiang. Not wanting to steal Cliff’s thunder when news of the results could be fraudulent break out, even Xiang’s visa to work in the United States is endangered.
Politicians and government come in the form of the Senate subcommittee exposing how grant money can be misappropriated, and the Office for Research Integrity in Science (ORIS). The heads of these government bodies all have their own hobby horses to ride on, to give justification to why they are in the positions they hold. The Philpott and R7 now become fodder for how these government offices can, in the name of integrity, distort and even condemn, the work of these scientists.
The best thing about Intuition is how Goodman maintains a very balanced, sympathetic view of all her characters. There are no villains as such. People make decisions, moral choices, and take sides as part of the everyday process of living out their lives. There are consequences, and the magic of her writing is how she makes human drama and imbues rich texture out of the lives of those she has created. There is so much depth and the ring of truth to this book that at times it is hard to believe it’s fiction. And I think that would be one of the supreme compliments I can give this novel.