“Intuition”
Allegra Goodman
The Dial Press
It would be easy to judge Allegra Goodman’s new novel, “Intuition,” by its cover.
An attractive woman with meticulously shaped eyebrows and piercing hazel eyes stares out from it, tantalizingly inviting the next passerby to pick up the book and take it home.
Combined with the bubbly red and green color scheme, prospective readers might incorrectly assume “Intuition” to be the latest chick lit novel to hit the local Borders.
But “Intuition” is a far cry from chick lit.
Goodman’s novel centers on the research lab of Marion Mendelssohn and Sandy Glass, two preeminent scientists at the Philpott Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Post-doctoral fellows Cliff, Robin, Feng and Prithwish work under Mendelssohn and Glass, busily conducting research.
Marion and Sandy are desperate to produce any sort of results from their lab that can be published and thus secure further funding for their research. Their prayers appear to finally be answered when Cliff claims to have discovered a cure for cancer.
But things take a sinister turn when Robin accuses Cliff of having falsified his data by omitting certain experimental results that didn’t support his hypothesis. OMG, right?
The resulting battle between Robin and Cliff escalates further and further until the novel reaches its surprising conclusion.
Goodman definitely has a flair for developing and fleshing out complex, sympathetic characters.
Sandy Glass ruthlessly seeks publicity for the lab and is more concerned with his public image than investigating Robin’s claims of fraud, but Goodman also portrays him as a family man in the novel’s scenes with the Glass family.
Both Cliff and Robin, former lovers, are neither purely good nor purely evil.
Goodman’s characters cannot be pegged as black or white, but slide back and forth among different shades of gray.
The novel’s only downfall may be its setting which might be inaccessible to some. While UCLA science students will easily understand references to crystallography, pipettes and agar, those who haven’t taken Chemistry 14BL may find themselves floundering in uncharted waters.
Nevertheless, Goodman ““ who has a doctorate in English from Stanford ““ is able to transcend the barriers between science and literature to create a story about people, their emotions, and their trials and triumphs, that any human can relate to.
Despite the deceptive cover, this suspenseful novel should definitely be in your beach bag.