Obsession makes a great backbone for a story, provided the writer can reveal the nuances of the force. Allegra Goodman can and does. She drills with breathtaking precision to her characters’ cores, laying them open as cleanly as in a dissection. Their foibles, flaws and feats are the soul of “Intuition,” a novel set in a research lab but more deeply concerned with the pitfalls of ambition.
The Philpott Institute in Cambridge, Mass., is, in 1985, renowned for its scientific research. But the competition for funding is fierce and never-ending. The postdoctoral researchers working on cancer-related projects in the institute’s Mendelssohn-Glass labs aren’t there for the money. And the chances that they will ever be there for the glory seem slim.
The pressure to produce promising results is immense, a reality not lost on Cliff Bannaker. He has been called on the carpet by lab directors Marion Medelssohn and Sandy Glass for pursuing a line of research they believe will prove unproductive. He has spent enough time, they say, exploring whether a modified virus can transform cancerous cells into normal ones. Perseverance in the face of daunting odds is of value only when you are right. He has frittered enough time away on a lost cause.
It seems a reasonable call at the time, but soon thereafter Marion and another research associate record startling changes in some of Cliff’s lab mice. Tumors that had been evident in previous weeks are reduced or eliminated. What looked like a dead end has, seemingly, suddenly opened up.
It is a godsend not just to Cliff but to the entire lab. Promising results will bring new funding, as well as helpful publicity. The limelight, even for the scientists, is tantalizing.
But what if Cliff’s results are too good to be true? Robin Decker, Cliff’s colleague and former lover, is unable to replicate his results. She questions their validity, first quietly and then with more insistence. The ensuing investigation rocks the worlds of all those touched by it.
In “Intuition,” the unfolding events take a back seat to the drama’s players. Goodman reveals a fully imagined cast of characters and then sets them loose in the world. Her people are sculpted in painstaking detail, and the interactions between them are thoughtful and thought-provoking.
Sandy is a renowned oncologist, on faculty at Harvard’s Medical School, but in his role of lab director, he’s a promoter. He is pushing forward with perhaps unseemly haste, greedy for recognition and grants. His boosterism is balanced by Marion’s more cautious, almost fretful scientific nature. The two have been partners for a long time, and their opposing natures have served them well. This time, though, their differences may blow the partnership to pieces.
Cliff had come to the lab as a golden boy, a highly recommended product of the best schools. But things have always come a little too easily; luck and good looks have been almost as helpful to him as his good mind. Robin buries her resentment of his success. She thinks she just wants things to be right, but she is unable to acknowledge the consequences that will grow from her persistence.
Each of the central characters is a stone thrown into a pond. The ripples of their actions play out in the lives of the family members and co-workers around them. The resulting novel is a rich stew, both cerebral and heartfelt.
Goodman draws attention to the thin line between error and fraud, and how decisions are shaped by personal ambition. She never provides definitive answers, leaving that exercise to the reader. Instead, without grandstanding, she quietly tells a story in which the characters’ actions carry them over precipices from which there may be no recovery.
Robin Vidimos is a freelance writer who reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the ‘Burbs.
Intuition
By Allegra Goodman
Dial Press, 344 pages, $25
