Double Helix

by James D. Watson

Double Helix is a new genetic-literary hybrid. Using the structure of DNA (which has its own language using paired molecules) as a model, Stephen Cain and Jay MillAr's new book employs a sequence of speak and respond pieces to read and write their way through the alphabet and discuss everything from the geography of Southern Ontario to why Ezra Pound is the true author of American Psycho. Living in different cities for a year, the two authors kept their ongoing conversations about poetics, relationships, and culture in the early 21st century alive by writing a collaborative project through correspondence, based on a simple alphabetic constraint. The result is Double Helix, a series of 52 micro-fictions, in which each writer meditates on a word beginning with a set letter of the alphabet. Molecular strands of concepts, arguments, and narratives twist about each other, yet also match, much like the double helix of human DNA. The final text mixes two lives, two writing styles, and two consciousnesses, that come to resemble a third mind--an act of literary meme-splicing.

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 21, 2006

About the author

In 1928, James D. Watson was born in Chicago. Watson, who co-discovered the double helix structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) at age 25, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins. His bird-watching hobby prompted his interest in genetics. He earned his B.Sc. degree in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1947, and his Ph.D. from Indiana University in Bloomington in 1950. He worked with Wilkins and Francis Crick at Cavendish Laboratory in England in 1951-1953, when they discovered the structure of DNA. Watson became a member of the Harvard Biology Department in 1956, then a full professor in 1961. His book The Double Helix, which was published in 1968, became a bestseller. Watson was appointed director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island in 1968, and became its president in 1994. As director of the National Center for Human Genome Research at the NIH in 1989, Watson launched the worldwide campaign to map and sequence the human genome. Watson was an outspoken unbeliever who considered that human progress had been shackled by the idea of divine fate, and that human beings should do their utmost to improve the future. In a Youngstown State University speech, Watson said, "The biggest advantage to believing in God is you don't have to understand anything, no physics, no biology. I wanted to understand" (The Vindicator, Dec. 2, 2003).

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wa...

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prize...

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/pa...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://www.dnaftb.org/19/bio.html

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like that it was given to me free when I ordered another, much, smaller pressed book. It's pretty good. Stephen Cain is the better writer. Thanks for the book, and tbc they bother are good. Ie. I'm very well read, and yes write. Not so much these days. It's difficult to care enough. As my friend Mike said, "They are out there." Yes they are.

[Sandra]

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Offered for FREE from the M/M Romance Group, Hot Summer Days event.