"Rosalind Franklin knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture-one more after thousands-she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her. Then it finally happens-the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what happens next, Rosalind could have never predicted. Marie Benedict's next powerful ...
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"Rosalind Franklin knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture-one more after thousands-she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her. Then it finally happens-the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what happens next, Rosalind could have never predicted. Marie Benedict's next powerful novel shines a light on a woman who died to discover our very DNA, a woman whose contributions were suppressed by the men around her but whose relentless drive advanced our understanding of humankind"--
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Marie Benedict's novel "Her Hidden Genius" (2022) is based upon the life and work of the British chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin (1920 -- 1958) centering upon her work in the discovery of the structure of DNA. In 1962, after Franklin's death, Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The Nobel Prize is awarded to living persons, and Franklin was dead. Still her large role in the investigation of the structure of DNA had been forgotten. The omission has been rectified in recent years with Franklin receiving a great deal of recognition and honor for her scientific accomplishments.
Marie Benedict is the pen name for Heather Terrell (b. 1958). Like Franklin, Terrell is highly gifted. She worked for ten years as a litigator in two prestigious law firms before finding that she was born to write and to tell the stories of neglected women. She has written many novels about women and about women's issues from a perspective that may loosely be described as feminist. She is married with two sons. This novel about Franklin is my first experience with Benedict's work.
The story is told in the first person by Franklin through diary entries beginning February 3, 1947, in Paris and concluding April 16, 1958, in London with Franklin's death. The chapters are short and engagingly written. I was drawn into the book from the outset. The character comes to life, personally and professionally, in Benedict's telling. The book includes much detailed scientific discussion necessary to understand Franklin's work and its importance. The book still flows well for the non-scientifically trained reader.
The story is set in post-WW II Paris and London in the worlds of rarefied scientific research. Franklin, raised in a prosperous and Jewishly observant home in London finds herself at home in the camaraderie of the Paris scientific community until she is sexually approached by her mentor, to whom she is greatly attracted, but who is married and involved in an affair with another. She moves to London where for two years she works assiduously on learning the structure of DNA. The book shows the sharp competition between different research centers in Britain and elsewhere. While partaking of the competition, Franklin appears devoted to science for its own sake and for the benefits it may bring to humanity. Franklin painstakingly works on learning the structure of DNA when, over her tenure, her work is appropriated by colleagues and by those in other laboratories. Her key discoveries are taken and used without her permission and without acknowledgement. The suggestion is that her work was stolen. She feels isolated and ostracized and leaves to take another position in London for the remainder of her short life and she investigates the structure of RNA. Benedict's account focuses on the harassment and patronization she receives from colleagues at the lab based largely with the discomfort the male scientists feel in the presence and accomplishments of a brilliant woman.
Another thread of the book explores Franklin's relationship to her family and to religion. She was a lifelong agnostic who rejected the theism of traditional Judaism. Probably more importantly, her family wanted Franklin to marry, raise a family, and work in charitable community affairs in accordance with their understanding of traditional Jewish practice. The family remained close but remained uncomfortable with Franklin's single state and her total dedication to the world of science.
Franklin has a complex character in this novel. Frequently she is blunt, abrasive, and tactless. It is not difficult to understand the difficulties she might face in a collegial environment. She also is kind, encouraging and helpful to her peers, and devoted to her calling. Throughout, there is a sexual tension between her independence and love of science and what seems to be a wish for male sexual companionship. She remains outside the theism of traditional Judaism but, as the book progresses, she seems, in her passion for nature and the mountains, to come to a sense of the mystery of life beyond the specific teachings and practices of science. As a scientist, Franklin tried to understand and study nature as it is before drawing broad conclusions especially conclusions involving heavy moralizing. That is a valuable perspective to bring to her life and to reading this novel about her life.
"Her Hidden Genius" is a fascinating, thoughtful book. For me, the book worked differently from the way I think Benedict intended. The book has a strong moral tenor and a sense of heavy wrongdoing making Franklin a victim and destroying her life.. Most of Benedict's novel stresses the difficulties Franklin endured and attributes these difficulties to her gender and to sexism. In the years since her death, Franklin has become an iconic figure for her role as the brilliant woman shunted aside in the world of men. To my mind, the book tells a different story as Franklin's accomplishments bore results and have been recognized at length in the years subsequent to her death. She lead the kind of life she wanted and did so, for the most part, with her eyes open. She had the opportunity to devote herself to science and she did. She was inspiring in herself and in the surroundings which allowed her, with cost, to flourish. She faced and tried with mixed results to balance the different goals of human life, including a sexual life, for herself. A scientific career is demanding by its nature, perhaps particularly so for women. This book is valuable because it helped me understand and appreciate Franklin in a different way from the feminist trappings in which her story has become ensconced.
