Ingeniously formatted as an autobiography by Rosalind Franklin, covering the 11 years between 1947 and her deathbed experiences in 1958 at age 37, this is the engaging story, in 52 short, dated chapters, of her life as a female scientist in a paternalistic discriminatory male world.
Born into a wealthy but unpretentious philanthropic Jewish London family, all of her relatives expressed disappointment in her laser-focused pursuit of science instead of the family businesses of banking and publishing.
Shy, insecure, and humble, but brilliant, she discovers that the scientists at a lab in Paris treat her as a equal and eventually she develops a brief romantic relationship and lasting infatuation with her boss as she makes breakthrough discoveries in the rarified field of X-Ray diffraction crystallography of various materials- until she discovers that he is a married philanderer.
She returned to England and King’s College, London, in early 1951, disappointed by her failed romance, and was assigned work studying the structure of DNA by X-ray crystallography. There, Maurice Wilkins (at least as portrayed) was an arrogant, misogynistic, egotist who tried (and seemingly succeeded) to steal Franklin’s huge breakthrough discovery regarding the structure of DNA and claim it as his own, including the preliminary finding that it is a helix. He then collaborated and shared her findings with James Watson and Francis Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, leading to the three of them being awarded a Nobel prize, without including the deceased Franklin, in 1962.
Many readers may interpret this story as an accurate historical record, but there seems to me to be a good reason that it is formatted and listed as novel, as the depiction of many men, including Nobel laureates James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins as thieves of intellectual property could now be seen as slanderous and libellous. But Wilkins and Crick are dead and Watson is 94, and is likely to rest on his undeserved laurels rather than risk a law suit for libel. Ironically, Watson’s negative portrayal of her character and work in The Double Helix a decade later lead to some recognition of her major contributions to science. Watson and Crick’s later lavish praise and recommendations for her funding when she was no longer a threat to their fame rings hollow.
Forced to leave Kings because of Wilkins’ betrayal, the remainder of her research career was at the rundown Birkbeck research centre with poor scientific equipment, studying the tobacco mosaic virus RNA. There, a visiting scientist confesses his love for her to her, too late, as she was dying of ovarian cancer, probably caused by her careless disregard for her radiation exposure. She regularly discarded her radiation monitor in her single-minded pursuit of science.
The Pittsburgh author has devoted several books to the admirable task of restoring the reputations of women in history and the sciences- those who have gone unrecognized in the records written by paternalistic, misogynous men, and she may have overemphasized the contributions of those women to some extent. I cannot asses that possibility nor vouch for the scientific accuracy of the processes presented here.
This is a graphic example of scientific research that is too frequently undertaken by men with huge egos, a constant rivalry to be first, and controversies. I never discovered anything of importance in my research career, but I do recall one manuscript I co-authored describing a heretofore unrecognized hereditary syndrome. Just before we sent it for publication, an almost identical report appeared in Paediatrics. That reportlead to the naming of the syndrome after the late French physician, Daniel Alligille.
Perhaps if this new book is ever adapted as a movie, the name Rosalind Franklin will finally get, posthumously, the recognition she richly deserved during her tragic short life.
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