Intuition by Allegra Goodman

Intuition Reviews

• 
  Tommy

  Frankly, I was quite disappointed given all the hype about this book when it hit the stands. In the end, there were well-developed characters but I just didn't buy into the relationships, I really didn't care about what happened to any of them, and was skeptical of the zaniness than embodied parts of the ending. It took me in a direction I wasn't expecting, and didn't inspire me to want to be there.
• 
  Steve

  I read somewhere that part of Goodman’s point in writing this was to portray science as religion. Her worshippers were researchers in a lab studying possible cures for cancer. The Way, the Truth, and the Light were the cause and effect relationships in the biological world that could be supported or denied by way of experiments. Some were attracted to this “church” for the chance to proselytize. One of the co-directors of the institute was an accomplished glad-hander and self-promoter. He was most fulfilled as a crusader for the cause, and proof of his virtue came through professional recognition as he trumpeted results and chased after scarce grant money. His partner at the lab was more of a pure scientist, a gifted and principled researcher. Verity itself was her Holy Grail. Faith, as practiced by the institute, directed as it was towards the scientific method, sustained them for a while. Like all religions, though, purity gets compromised when people are involved.
  
  The fly in the ointment here (to use a trite, but medical-sounding metaphor) was how all-too-human motivations might have gotten in the way of their results. We’re left wondering whether an important discovery and subsequent doubts cast on it were in any way driven by deceit, sloppiness, jealousy, romantic complications, and/or willful blindness.
  
  Goodman sounds very realistic in describing the lab and its issues. It must help that her mother was a biology professor and her sister is a medical researcher. She also does a great job conveying the brilliance of her characters. One presumes she’s a pretty smart cookie herself to do it so well. That said, though, I do have one criticism. There was a key element to the plot that she evidently wanted to leave somewhat ambiguous. The problem is that this was at odds with the omniscient narration that had been so forthcoming about where her characters’ heads were at everywhere else. Still, this was a very well written, thought-provoking book: 4 very bright stars, bordering on 5.
  
• 
  Yulia

  My only guess as to why the New Yorker called Goodman a "writer of uncommon clarity" is because she repeats the same phrases again and again until you have no excuse not to notice them. One reference to the action in this novel taking place at Harvard would have been enough, but Goodman gives us dozens of reminders within the first few pages alone that, yes, this is Harvard and, yes, she has done her research and knows about the kids in the pit and the chess players outside of Au Bon Pain and the Harvard Coop and, oh my gosh, could we be on the Harvard campus at this very moment? My pulse is meant to quicken. But As much as I love Cambridge and always will, Goodman had the uncanny ability to make me cringe at every set-piece she added to remind us of Harvard. Cringe at what I loved: that is talent. The subject is so easily appealing, an ethical issue at a science lab, at the heart of academia: what to do? I know what I did. But let's read on to see how her characters came to realize the inherent complications of their situation. No, no luck. The writing is simply too uncommonly redundant and insulting to our intelligence, with characters darting to and fro like worker bees. This book is not a literary moral thriller, but a light yet "serious" read for teens exhausted from overachieving, who can't get enough of everything Harvard. Gimme gimme gimme, and Goodman does. Ah, but I'm not 15 anymore.
  
  * * * * *
  
  Um, don't mind what I wrote in 2006 (below); I ended up loving this book.
  
  Here's a recent article on a line of Duke cancer research that seemed too good to be true:
  
  
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/hea...
  
• 
  Lita

  I was a bit worried about how it will be to read a book based in a research lab. You see, I am a researcher myself (from a totally different research field, mind you), and I try really hard not to pollute my free time with work stuff (it's not like you can actively stop your brain working on sciency stuff somewhere in the background, but you try...). Also, I've found that you can easily get disappointed in books about settings or topics you know very well if the author has not done his or her homework properly. Well, I shouldn't have worried at all. The book started off a little bit slow. And I think it went quite a bit into the details on cancer research that could cost it some of the readers early on. But it was somewhat necessary to set the scene for what's to come. The main focus of the book is on research fraud. And the author has quite masterfully woven personal and academic suspense on several layers around it. There was a point when I couldn't stop reading because I couldn't tell which side is in the right. The suspense was almost killing me! I also have to acknowledge the author's courage to tackle so many flaws in academia: our 'publish or perish' culture, struggles with funding, discrimination, bureaucratic nightmares, institutional power-houses, and politicization of science. It was all entangled with this complex story about the one thing that you should never do as a researcher - lie about your results (regardless of the form it takes). If the situation arises, I could almost use it as an alternative to textbooks on research ethics.
  
  At the same time, I don't know if the book is something non-academics will fully enjoy or understand. The author went into the deep end and I think assumed some base knowledge of her readers (I checked - the author comes from an academic family and has a Ph.D. herself). If that won't put them off, all the detailed descriptions of manipulations with mice just might (I'm so glad I don't have to work with animals...). On the other hand, if you plan to go for a Ph.D. and make a career in science, read this first. It's all in there, the tragicomic life of researchers, young and not so young.
• 
  Snotchocheez

  
  (with profuse apologies to my one Goodreads friend who gave this 5 stars, and with whom I just explained how loath I am to give 1-star reviews)
  
  Um...no, please.
  
  Intuition, a story about several scientists in search of a cure for cancer, reads like it has much loftier intentions, but somehow comes off like a Michael Crichton/Jodi Picoult in vitro love child experiment gone frightfully, yet boringly, awry. Lots of handwringing, and very little substance; you almost root for the lab rats to bite one of the protagonists and start a pandemic or something...anything to inject life into this moribund wannabe thriller.
• 
  Mark

  Just a quickie review right now, to mention that one thing I really like about Allegra Goodman's writing is how she springs "obvious" plot evolutions on you without drama: something that was certain to happen, just does, or is revealed in the next scene already to HAVE happened. It's refreshingly economical. Goodman he makes her words count.
  
  Also, the action is subtle; there are no cheap shots. At various times I was *sure* there would be a fatefully misplaced chemical reagent, or a tragic swimming accident, or a foolish dalliance with the boss's daughter, absolutely none of which happened. It may be that she was teasing us with these cliches, setting them up only to hold them back with a chuckle. Retrospectively I feel that's it's own form of pandering, but I still credit Goodman for not stooping all the way.
  
  Instead, it's revealed that tiny subtle things can add up to real consequences. Relationships and scientific advancements both are put at risk by circumstances you wouldn't think twice about and the exact plot twist that controls the outcome is neither the important thing, or even... well, that would be giving it away.
• 
  Lindsey

  This book was somewhat interesting but never turned into one of those gotta-read-it page turners for me. It was breezy and well written, but some of the literary parts I couldn't help but feel were somewhat juvenile for the subject material that was being covered.
• 
  beth

  Just thought it was a shallow development of not all that believeable characters. While the main character alluded to the fact that Robin was his girlfriend, there was minimal build up or description of their relationship or their lives. Just could not get into the characters.
• 
  Vonia

  I will preface this review by saying that I am definitely not medically inclined. The closest thing to cancer research I have participated in is psychology experiments in undergraduate. However, I was never involved for more than a semester and it never took more than a few hours out of my day. The scientists detailed in "Intuition" live and die for their research. They literally live in the labs, and it becomes their lives. I could hardly claim to know what it is like. This subculture involves much that I am unable to be attuned to (i.e. the vernacular, scientific methods, grant writing, how the pressure for results feels in an academic setting). From my undergraduate research experience as well as other areas of life, I have a general idea, but I am sure it is slightly different for these characters. It is likely that those whom can say to themselves, "I totally went through that!"; that can recognize parallels in Goodman's writing to their own experiences would appreciate this book much more than I have. Because I found this book good but not great. I found myself needing to force myself to continue. I was bored. The author seemed to go on for pages unnecessarily regarding events that would have been better told than shown. The story seemed to move so slowly, not even addressing the main plot (research ethics) until the halfway point. In another situation thus way have been a wonderful thing- time to build character depth. I finished the first several hundred pages with a lot of data on the numerous characters, but nothing to focus in on. A net was cast, with no bait.
  
  Things did begin to get interesting around the middle of the reading. Then I became frustrated with the characters and the way the plot was going. Then I became increasingly so as things did not change. It seemed that no one in the academic research community could even fathom the idea of someone cheating results, even playing with them at all. And when one of them questions it, she is immediately shunned. With no concern with their validity. Furthermore, honesty in scientific journals, full and complete documentation of experiment data, processes, and results seems to play second best to a myriad of other priorities for everyone involved. Cliff is accused of fraud. His cancer research results regarding the RC-7 stem might be "too good to be true". Yet scientific honesty is barely mentioned. Instead, pride, reputation, financial, shifting blame, personal relationships. Who cares about the institution of the scientific community, that the public should be able to trust published results?
  
  Perhaps this is really the way it works. Although I find it doubtful that Goodman has not exaggerated, at least a little. By the end of this book, I was forcing myself through, trying to read as quickly as possible, simply to finish it. The ending was both redeeming and rewarding. Goodman should be praised for her ability to vividly portray the academic research subculture, although it is not something she has been involved in. Others have referred to this book as "showing us what it is like to be human"; the complexity and depth in her characterization is completely over praised. Like I said, this book was good but not that good.
  
• 
  le-trombone

  This is a novel of science, labs, and people. Amazingly, it very good. This is not sarcasm; it is not often that one sees a well-written novel where the characters are scientists, and actually behave like human beings. Unfortunately, behaving like human beings sometimes means behaving badly.
  
  Cliff Bannaker is a postdoc struggling with his research. It's not going well, and the two directors of his lab are contemplating letting him go, when his third run of experiments (a virus to attack cancer cells) appear to produce results. Suddenly his star is ascending, and while director Marion Mendelssohn wants to be cautious and look for more confirmation, director Sandy Glass wants to announce results immediately and apply for grants for their underfunded institute.
  
  Complicating matters are the interpersonal relationships. Cliff is dating Robin Decker at the lab, and Robin begins to suspect that the results were too good to be true. Robin's suspicions and Cliff's protective feelings towards his results lead him to think Robin is jealous.
  
  Robin doesn't think her concerns are being taken seriously and takes them to the ethical arm of NIH, leading to politics that Robin is unprepared for. Furthermore, Robin is not an entirely likable person, and this is used against her; when matters start to spin out of control, she gets bad advice that makes things worse.
  
  Goodman shines when it comes to her characters' inner lives and interactions. For example, she manages in two lines to show the relationship Sandy has with one of his daughters: "No math-fearing patsy. She was his son." There are a lot of characters in this book (families are not ignored), and everyone gets their moment. This could be distracting, but the central problem, the theme of the story, remains: individuals who do not live up to their own ideals and who sometimes drag others down with them. The tragedy is not Shakespearean, people move on with their lives, but a good many relationships do not survive.
• 
  Lightreads

  One of those where I can rattle off a whole long list of good things about this book and Goodman's talent, but my face would still be going '…eh' the entire time. Watch:
  
  The story of a cancer research lab and what happens when one researcher calls shenanigans on the extraordinary results of her colleague. An intensely interpersonal web, where it's not about the conflict and who is right and what the truth is, but instead about these personalities in this high-pressure mixing bowl. It's a book about science by way of being 95% about people -- about their screwups and jealousies and intuitions and desires and money and patience and breaking points. About how that makes science go as much as truth does. The writing has that lucid, pane-of-freshly-scrubbed-glass quality, if you know what I mean. It's not that this book is sympathetic to each conflicting point-of-view. It bypasses that to something more straightfaced and real and tangled. Sort of lifting the knot of people and squinting at it from every direction, watching it go, recording the data. One of the better executions of omniscient writing on a technical level I've seen in a long time.
  
  It's all quite admirable and well-crafted and interesting.
  
  And I just didn't care. Really at all. Shrug. I don't know, it just seems patently obvious to me that the practice of science is fundamentally no different than any other vocation or discipline: it ticks complexly and emotionally and interpersonally. Okay. Next.
  
  I'd probably have cared if this was about a presidential campaign, though. So take that as you will.
• 
  Marie

  I would give the first half of this book 4 stars, and the last half 2 stars, averaging to 3 stars.
  
  In the beginning, I found the story compelling and the plot interesting. It is not for the fainthearted, though, or for animal lovers. I am no lover of rodents, but even I had difficulties reading about the experiments on the tiny mice that were given cancer and other ailments and then "sacrificed" at the end. (I do believe that animal research is necessary for scientific advances, but I had never read such intricate details about such research before.)
  
  Many of the characters were interesting, but others seemed superfluous. Goodman was compared (on my copy of the book) to Jane Austen. Another reviewer compared this book, not in a flattering way, to Chris Bohjalian and Jodi Picoult (who in fact I enjoy a great deal!).
  
  Goodman is no doubt a talented writer, and she knows her way around a story. But where the distinctions with Austen, Bohjalian, and Picoult fall apart is her ability to continue to engage the reader and bring the story home. The conclusion of the book seemed to drag on and on and on...to the point where I found myself scanning the pages to get to the end.
  
  That was a disappointing way to end what I felt at the beginning was going to be a highly satisfactory novel.
  
  
• 
  Della

  One of the few books that I didn’t enjoy, and forced myself to read all the way through in order to be fair about my assessment of the entire book. To make a long complaint short, I think Allegra is telling a specific story about a specific set of circumstances. It is an interesting story such that her characters are placed in difficult situations, but they choose to take courses of action that I think a lot of reasonable people in science would have taken an alternative approach. What worries me is that the non-research scientist will think that her fictional story is commonplace and representative of people in science research. Maybe I’ve been lucky and have immersed myself in research labs whose major problems are mundane and boring, and the worst thing that could happen is another research group beats you to the punch and scoops you by publishing the same story first. Maybe science really is this dramatic elsewhere! And do researchers really bring their knitting to the workplace? Yes- I’ve seen it!
• 
  Peter Tillman

  Complex story of medical research gone bad, in part a retelling of the David Baltimore/Thereza Imanishi-Kari case in the late 1980s. A good review:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/sci... and
  4.4 stars. I liked it a lot, and am thinking of re-reading it.
  
  This book is something of a poster-child for Lab Lit, which may be where I first saw it:
  http://lablit.com/the-lablit-list/nov...
• 
  Ramon Remires

  Like a psychiatric surgeon sitting on her chair writing a note on a patient's pad, the author reveals to our tired eyes all the depths of the souls of her figures lying before her on the treatment couch. And the detail, so impressive that it exhausts you completely. There is no feeling hidden from us, no motive hidden from us. There is not a little bit of thought, a trait, a hobby, or some self-insight that has spared from us during reading.
  
  The book focuses on a scientist who has made a breakthrough in the quest for cancer medicine. This inspires the envy of another scientist and is determined to find flaws in his work. In tedious detail, in diffuse phrasing and random descriptions of their focus, the writer describes this terrible plot, in which jealousy prevails. This is monstrous jealousy of its dimensions, which rises above all the relevant mental and human considerations.
  
  Reading the book, even if it was quite tricky, made me feel horrifying: How many studies of drugs have been interrupted for stupid reasons like politics or money or envy? And how much life could have been saved? I'm horrified to think about it.
  
  This is a tedious book that manages to evoke deep thoughts about the cynical world in which we live. Worth the investment in reading? I still can not say for sure.
• 
  Laura

  Very detailed insight into the world of medical research. I enjoyed this one. Here is the review from the New Yorker: This intimate portrait of life in a research institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, revolves around a scientific mystery: the groundbreaking, too-good-to-be-true discovery of a virus that fights cancer. Cliff, the rakish, headstrong post-doc responsible for the discovery, is on the verge of dismissal when his tumor-ridden mice exhibit stunning rates of remission; meanwhile, Cliff's co-worker and former girlfriend, spurred by personal and professional jealousy, begins to harbor suspicions about his lab work. The somewhat transparent plot is made compelling by the aesthetic delicacy of Goodman's writing—furless lab mice are "like quivering pink agar"—and by the care with which she sketches the social world of the lab. The omniscient narrative nimbly shifts perspective among a small number of complex characters, to produce a Rashomon-like inquiry into truth and motive.
  
• 
  Pygmy

  A struggle to read...mainly because at pg.82, I still don't care about any of the characters. The science laboratory setup with actually real science details, rather than pseudo-crap a la "Pemberly By the Sea", was nice and different, but not so appealing that it can stand wihtout character investment.
  
  The author also has a baffling habit of changing POV several times throughout a chapter, essentially hopping to every character in the room. I had always heard/thought that if you are going to switch POV, at least wait until a chapter break. The only time I've seen this rule violated was with crappy romance novels. In any case, the author goes through such lengths to reveal the thoughts of every character in each situation, and yet most of it is infodump on back-story or personality analysis and...I don't know. The infodump didn't feel particularly important, or maybe it was enlightening, but I wished it was presented in actually dialogue and actions rather than a block of narration.
  
  Overall, I am underwhelmed, and will not be finishing this book.
• 
  Jody Sperling

  I cannot remember the last book I read in which I loved the characters so much. Over the course of four days my mind was drawn constantly to this book. I needed to know how the tensions and conflict would resolve, and even as my heart broke for the characters who lost the most, I couldn't help but feel this novel fulfilled its every promise. Near the book's end one of the principal characters meditates on how great work requires long labor, small advances, and humility. In those thoughts, the novel's worldview spins.
• 
  Cris

  This is the perfect book for Chiara!! 3 stars? Check! All about life in a lab? Check!! I know what I’m getting her for her bd😜
  Jokes to the side, the lab politics, the passion for science the slavery of it and the murkiness of morality are all very well delineated elements here. I found it a bit long winded and a bit boring, but wanted to know how it ended.
  
• 
  Sally

  This novel was a piece of dry toast.
• 
  Sheila

  This novel won't give you much feeling for the hundreds of mice who are sacrificed in its pages, but it will consume you with the trials and tribulations - great and small - of the white-coated and white-privileged professionals who inhabit the world of science. At first read you might think you are getting a real insider view, but in the end, I realized I had suffered the limitations of the author's privileged upbringing. One comes away with the "balanced view" that might be offered by mainstream TV: no hard fact-finding fingers get pointed at the Cancer industry, at Big Pharma, at corporate control of education. Instead, the finger wags at the pressure to publish, the pressure to succeed. We get an up close and personal view of the individual players, and are impressed with the role of "character" - of how this determines your actions. Goodman (who never questions why her world is so white) wield's a palette of characters neatly limited to a slice of middle and upper class people (with a few happy foreigners thrown in.) Good people prevail and competition between rival labs ultimately self-corrects the excesses of individuals. "Politics" is limited to a hearing on the Hill, and the writer avoids the deeper politics of the billions spent on cancer research. (Which is sort of like researching how to clean a river whilst pooping in it)... that is to say, we know what causes cancer (like, atomic bombs and Agent Orange, for starters) so why not ban the causes first, rather than spend billions on a cure? (This would also prevent the suffering of billions of lab animals, too.) Besides, Intuition notwithstanding, most cancer research is not aimed at finding a cure for cancer but rather at finding drugs that will alleviate the life-threatening side effects of other cancer drugs. Intuition is a nicely detailed soap opera that fails readers who are interested in the bigger picture.
• 
  Bookmarks Magazine

  The author of the National Book Award finalist Kaaterskill Falls (1998) and the critically acclaimed Total Immersion (1989) and The Family Markowitz (1996) has written another gripping novel. In this issue-driven drama told through multiple perspectives, Goodman probes the commitment to scientific discovery and the desire for success. Keeping situations morally ambiguous, Goodman introduces characters whose intuitions guide them through all-too-plausible dilemmas. A few critics disagreed about Robin's characterization and her tit-for-tat actions; others cited the theme of intuition as overbearing. Yet all agreed that Goodman provides a rare insider's look at a research lab's subculture__and human survival.

  This is an excerpt from a review published in
  Bookmarks magazine.
• 
  Cheryl

  This is a fascinating read about the personalities and politics of a cancer research lab. A struggling postdoc suddenly starts to achieve startling results with his experiments, bringing some fame and kudos to his lab. But another postdoc, a soon-to-be-ex girlfriend, can't replicate his results, and she starts to wonder about the integrity of his processes. The story is told from numerous viewpoints, showing that truth is relative, not easily defined. Supposedly objective and unassailable hard data, the backbone of rigorous science, is only a tool in the hands of humans, who cannot help but be defined by their own subjective, shifting and wavering human emotions. Goodman has captured the intricate and complex dance of how humans interact and relate -- that was the real triumph of this book.
• 
  William

  A novel about cancer research in Cambridge, Mass., Intuition follows a close-knit group of postdoctoral researchers through a series of experiments that leads them through successes, failures and the possibilities of private and public redemption. Larger issues are raised about the purity of science, the uses of ego in competitive climates, the overlap between politics and science, and how personal needs occlude and corrupt institutional goals — and often times shape them. What I enjoyed about this book was its setting in the early 1990s – freeing the story from cellular phones and Internet research in a way that makes the world of the Philpott Institute seem smaller, and the snowballing personal affronts that occur there much more significant.
  
  
• 
  Meri

  This story about the pressure to succeed in a research lab and the foibles that can occur seems particularly timely during the pandemic. While the beginning of the book is very slow--I didn't care about the characters and it took a long time for the plot to pick up--the end felt a little like a slow-motion tsunami to me. Understanding the importance of small issues and politics and the impact all of that can have on scientific discovery and thus real people's lives (COVID-19 vaccine anyone?) was quite a profound moment. Not a perfect book but one I will carry with me.
• 
  LauraT

  Interesting glimpse at how also scientific lab research - or precisely scientific lab research itself? - could be deviated by lust, envy, greed...
• 
  Janelle

  I enjoyed this novel, but I feel it's definitely not as strong as the other Goodman books I've read so far (Kaaterskill Falls, The Cookbook Collector).
  
  It started out well. I was captivated by the setting of a scientific research lab led by ambitious scientists and staffed by quirky postdocs. I wondered how realistic her portrayal of the lab was and made a mental note to ask my scientist friends later.
  
  As the book wore on, I realized that I wasn't really learning much that was new about the characters. They were painted quickly at the beginning and didn't really develop much after that. This was disappointing. Then again, maybe she's saying that this type of scientist - the one who devotes every waking minute to the lab and doesn't live a very well-rounded life - is quite flat. The characters who appeared to have other interests (like Aidan, the singer), were relegated to the back seat. By the time we got to the government inquiry, I was somewhat disengaged. Then again, maybe that was intentional - that kind of encounter can grind the life right out of you. (But is it supposed to grind the life out of the reader, too?)
  
  I also found myself caught in the swirl of "he's right! NO, she's right! wait, who's right?" that I'm sure was intentional. I think Goodman asks the reader to use her intuition to help decide. If anything, this book reminds us that science is not at all black-and-white but filled with nuances that make it quite grey. I can see that this novel might make good student discussion material for a class on science in society.
  
  In the end, I distrusted some of the material becuase of one niggling detail that I think Goodman got wrong. If you know me, you won't be surprised: it was the KNITTING. I wasn't surprised that Goodman made one of the lead scientists a knitter - New England is filthy with 'em and it's not that uncommon for academics to knit while at work. It was WHAT she was knitting that made no sense - a fisherman's sweater! Goodman went into a lot of detail about the complex pattern - the cables, diagonal zig zags, etc. - many changes in pattern - and went on and on about how she did this during lab meetings. That just made no sense - you don't work on complicated sweaters during meetings. And at the end, when Marion unravels the sweater... well. I was simultaneously disbelieving and intrigued. I'm sure Goodman was aiming for the imagery of that particular scene and backed into it by peppering the front of the novel with references to the sweater. But it just didn't work for me.
  
  I'll still be reading more Goodman, but this novel gave me several causes to pause.