[Goodman's] characters so live and breathe on the page that they could get up and make you a cup of coffee while you finish the next chapter. Intuition is a stunning achievement.' Economist
Sandy Glass and Marion Mendelssohn work together as co-directors of a cancer research lab in Boston. As mentors and supervisors to their young protégés, they demand dedication and respect in a competitive environment where funding is scarce and results elusive. So when the experiments of Cliff Bannaker, one of the youngest members of their team, begin to produce encouraging results, the entire lab becomes giddy with expectations . . .
But jealousy soon breeds suspicion and Cliff's colleague – and girlfriend – Robin Decker begins to suspect the unthinkable: that his findings and Cliff maintains his innocence, a life-changing controversy engulfs the lab and everyone in it . . . The result is an entirely unforgettable novel, as revealing about human nature as it is about the real life of science.
'Winningly original . . . Goodman transports us in a fugue state of first-class storytelling . . . to the heart of the matter: what it means to be – merely, magnificently – human.' Elle
