Menachem's Seed: A Novel - Hardcover

Djerassi, Carl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820319252 ISBN 13: 9780820319254

Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr, 1997

Synopsis

A professor of chemistry and the author of Marx, Deceased presents the third novel in his projected tetralogy, a fictional study of the scientific community involving an American researcher who experiments on her lover's stolen sperm. UP.

About this title

About the Author:

CARL DJERASSI is a professor of chemistry at Stanford University. His books include the novels The Bourbaki Gambit (Georgia) and Cantor's Dilemma; the autobiography The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse; and essay, short story, and poetry collections. Djerassi is the winner of the National Medal of Science in 1973 (for the synthesis of the first steroid oral contraceptive), the National Medal of Technology in 1991 (for novel approaches to insect control), and the 1992 Priestley Medal, the highest American award in chemistry. He is also the founder of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, an artists' colony near San Francisco that supports working artists in various disciplines.

From Kirkus Reviews:

The third and best volume in the author's ``science-in- fiction'' tetralogy (Cantor's Dilemma, 1989; The Bourbaki Gambit, 1994). Djerassi (Chemistry/Stanford) takes an upbeat view of the kinds of international scientific conferences so scathingly described by Arthur Koestler in The Party Girls. Here, Melanie Laidlaw, 35, a childless American widow, directs fund-giving by a foundation for reproductive biology. At a conference in Kirschberg, Austria, she falls in love with a 50-year-old Israeli nuclear engineer and policy wog by the name of Menachem Dvir. Dvir's wife, it happens, was paralyzed in an auto accident 20 years ago while he was driving. He's also infertile as a result of overexposure to radiation. Melanie, meanwhile, is tapped by a group that's pioneering in vitro fertilization and needs funds from her foundation. She has already had a second tryst with Dvir at a new conference, and it's there that the idea occurs to her of stealing her lover's sperm, having the needy in vitro group fertilize one of her eggs, and bearing his child without his knowledge. This leads Djerassi into a full-dress review of the early years of in vitro fertilization, while a review of Dvir's undercover ties with a PLO policy market is covered so thoroughly that one feels well informed about Middle East politics. Also, the nonreligious Melanie decides to have her son born to a Jewish mother and so undertakes confirmation as a Reform Jew, which Djerassi details in great depth. Will Menachem accept his son (or seed)? Djerassi fudges the obligatory Tolstoyan face-off between Melanie and Menachem, but leaves the reader satisfied despite this shortfall. A great novel? No. But absolutely strong and real. Bravo, professor. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0820319252
• ISBN 13: 9780820319254
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 196