Mapping Fate: A Memoir of Family, Risk, and Genetic Research

Wexler, Alice

ISBN 10: 0520207416 / ISBN 13: 9780520207417

Published by University of California Press, 1996

About this Item

Cover may have light wear, pages in very good condition and binding is sturdy; may have other light shelf wear or creases. May have notes or highlighting.

Seller Inventory # EVV.0520207416.VG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Mapping Fate: A Memoir of Family, Risk, and Genetic Research
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520207416
• ISBN 13: 9780520207417
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: very_good

About this title

Synopsis

In Mapping Fate, Alice Wexler tells the story of a family at risk for a hereditary, incurable, fatal disorder: Huntington's disease, once called Huntington's chorea. That her mother died of the disease, that her own chance of inheriting it was fifty-fifty, that her sister and father directed much of the extraordinary biomedical research to find the gene and a cure, make Wexler's story both astonishingly intimate and scientifically compelling.

Alice Wexler's graceful and eloquent account goes beyond the specifics of Huntington's disease to explore the dynamics of family secrets, of living at risk, and the drama and limits of biomedical research. Mapping Fate will be a touchstone for anyone with questions about genetic illness and the possibilites and perils of genetic testing.

About the Author

Alice Wexler is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Women at University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Emma Goldman in America (1984) and Emma Goldman in Exile (1989).