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A review by nate_meyers
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
2.0
The Gene is a messy, excessively long book--and one you should skip. Readers looking for popular science books should look to better science writers such as Ed Yong (I Contain Multitudes) or Elizabeth Kolbert (The Sixth Extinction). I outline what I think are The Gene's major weaknesses below.
1. The Subject. The Emperor of All Maladies was unique in both its topic and the comprehensiveness. Mukherjee chooses "low hanging fruit" for his follow-up. Writing on genes and genetics are a dime-a-dozen. The content in first half of the Gene, chronicling the research of Mendel, Darwin, and Watson & Crick among other "big names in science" is unoriginal, while the content of the second half largely chronicles the work of Mukherjee's mentors and collaborators.
2. The Title. Mukherjee tries to create "An Intimate History" by tying the history of genetics to his relatives with mental illness. However, the underlying genetic changes behind mental illness remain speculative at best and mental illness is fairly common (20% of Americans suffer from mental illness) such that almost everybody has an intimate history with The Gene--especially if the scope is expanded to diseases at large. From this overly broad title, I wish Mukherjee had been more focused in his personal story. In his words, I wish he would have looked to "the future's future." This book could have been much more powerful if he discussed the process behind his decision to have kids--knowing there would be increased likelihood of severe mental illness--and the legacy of this decision. Did he believe at the time that genomics would advance sufficiently that any of his descendants could be cured? Instead, he kept the focus on his uncles and in speculating about the future merely speculates that his uncles could have been cured if they were born much later.
3. The organization--both on the large (whole book) and small (chapter-by-chapter) scales. The first 3 parts of this book are chronological, but the last 3 parts of this book are thematic. However, all 6 parts have dates associated with them that suggest the book moves in chronological order. Because of this organization, the last half of the book was hard to read at several points. The chapters are also messy, with many chapters telling partial scientific stories before swiftly moving to a completely separate story. Perhaps "Abhed," the first chapter of Part 2, is most representative of this organizational problem. It begins with a piece of Mukherjee's personal story, shifts to describing Thomas Morgan's search for a more tangible description of the gene, and then ends by abruptly shifting to hemophelia in the early 1900s in Russia. It's a mess.
4. The length. There is no need for this book to be 500 pages. Based on the crazy number of times Mukherjee describes introns and intergenic spacers, gene penetrance, and the central dogma--it seems clear he expects his readers to take long breaks in their reading. That means the book is too long.
5. The under-representation of women. I estimate the >90% of the scientists Mukherjee highlights are men. While it is true that men have outnumbered women in the history of science, this writing choice is also intentional. He mentions James Watson at least 5x as much as Rosalind Franklin. While he portrays Rosalind as someone that is hard to work with, he never once mentions that James Watson has some extremely bigoted opinions and is not a great human being. Beyond highlighting the research of men much more than that of women, Mukherjee generally seeks quotes from male scientists where a quote from either gender would do. For example, he twice looks for general quotes about gene editing on p476-477 and both times chooses men (George Daley, Francis Collins).
And that'll do it for now. Skip this book
1. The Subject. The Emperor of All Maladies was unique in both its topic and the comprehensiveness. Mukherjee chooses "low hanging fruit" for his follow-up. Writing on genes and genetics are a dime-a-dozen. The content in first half of the Gene, chronicling the research of Mendel, Darwin, and Watson & Crick among other "big names in science" is unoriginal, while the content of the second half largely chronicles the work of Mukherjee's mentors and collaborators.
2. The Title. Mukherjee tries to create "An Intimate History" by tying the history of genetics to his relatives with mental illness. However, the underlying genetic changes behind mental illness remain speculative at best and mental illness is fairly common (20% of Americans suffer from mental illness) such that almost everybody has an intimate history with The Gene--especially if the scope is expanded to diseases at large. From this overly broad title, I wish Mukherjee had been more focused in his personal story. In his words, I wish he would have looked to "the future's future." This book could have been much more powerful if he discussed the process behind his decision to have kids--knowing there would be increased likelihood of severe mental illness--and the legacy of this decision. Did he believe at the time that genomics would advance sufficiently that any of his descendants could be cured? Instead, he kept the focus on his uncles and in speculating about the future merely speculates that his uncles could have been cured if they were born much later.
3. The organization--both on the large (whole book) and small (chapter-by-chapter) scales. The first 3 parts of this book are chronological, but the last 3 parts of this book are thematic. However, all 6 parts have dates associated with them that suggest the book moves in chronological order. Because of this organization, the last half of the book was hard to read at several points. The chapters are also messy, with many chapters telling partial scientific stories before swiftly moving to a completely separate story. Perhaps "Abhed," the first chapter of Part 2, is most representative of this organizational problem. It begins with a piece of Mukherjee's personal story, shifts to describing Thomas Morgan's search for a more tangible description of the gene, and then ends by abruptly shifting to hemophelia in the early 1900s in Russia. It's a mess.
4. The length. There is no need for this book to be 500 pages. Based on the crazy number of times Mukherjee describes introns and intergenic spacers, gene penetrance, and the central dogma--it seems clear he expects his readers to take long breaks in their reading. That means the book is too long.
5. The under-representation of women. I estimate the >90% of the scientists Mukherjee highlights are men. While it is true that men have outnumbered women in the history of science, this writing choice is also intentional. He mentions James Watson at least 5x as much as Rosalind Franklin. While he portrays Rosalind as someone that is hard to work with, he never once mentions that James Watson has some extremely bigoted opinions and is not a great human being. Beyond highlighting the research of men much more than that of women, Mukherjee generally seeks quotes from male scientists where a quote from either gender would do. For example, he twice looks for general quotes about gene editing on p476-477 and both times chooses men (George Daley, Francis Collins).
And that'll do it for now. Skip this book