Rich Ratzan directed us recently to Lucy, a novel by Laurence Gonzales, that that deals with "issues that are currently very much in the scientific and moral foreground." I am reading it now (at his suggestion) and finding it absorbing, well-written and thought-provoking. Here is an excerpt from Rich's review:
"Lucy is a novel named for the female hybrid offspring born of a bonobo mother and human father. The result of artificial insemination by her father, Donald Stone, a British anthropologist in the Congo with aims to improve the human species, Lucy is a very human-looking 15 year old girl. An American primatologist in a nearby camp, Jenny Lowe, finds Lucy next to her parents, killed by Congolese insurgents, and whisks her off to Chicago and enrolls her in high school, where Lucy excels at wrestling and meets a friend, Amanda Mather. After Lucy contracts a viral disease that bonobos, not humans contract, Lucy decides to pre-empt those who wish to expose her and posts the news of her hybrid karyotype on Facebook" Download Lucy Ratzan review
Rich Ratzan has a literary blog LITERATUREandMEDICINE that is a valuable resource. You may contact him at: RR Email.
