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Heredity
Smart, blonde, and self-destructive, Elizabeth Mann thinks that leaving New York for a London travel-writing job will solve all her problems with her father, a well-known American infertility specialist. She couldn?t be more in a museum of medical curiosities at the Royal College of Surgeons, her daydreams over the skeleton of Jonathan Wild - a notorious eighteenth-century bounty-hunter - are interrupted by an encounter with Gideon Streetcar, an attractive gynaecologist with asthma and a low sperm count. Not only is Gideon married, he?s also a former student of Elizabeth?s father; yet Elizabeth fast assumes the humiliating, exhilarating role of Gideon?s secret mistress. As her obsession with Jonathan Wild grows, Elizabeth decides that with Gideon?s help, she will give birth to the bounty-hunter?s clone. An impressive debut, Heredity is a virtuoso tale about the world of fertility and genetic cloning.
- GenresFiction
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 29, 2003
2 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Jenny Davidson
16 books35 followersJenny Davidson is a professor at Columbia University and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of the novel HEREDITY (2003); two YA novels, THE EXPLOSIONIST (2008) and INVISIBLE THINGS (2010); and several academic books.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 1, 2015
The protagonist, Elizabeth Mann, is an intelligent but troubled and unhappy young woman. She hates herself and her family. A friend offers her a job writing a travel guide to British museums. This sounds like my dream job, but the author and protagonist both talk as if it were boring and useless. We don't get to learn much about any museums except the already well-documented British Library; instead we hear all about Elizabeth's self-loathing, excessive drinking, and meaningless sex. She runs into Gideon, a married fertility specialist who formerly worked with her famous doctor father. They immediately and without any discussion or flirtation begin an affair, although she doesn't actually seem to like the guy. At the same time, she becomes obsessed with Jonathan Wild, an 18th-century man whose skeleton she sees in a museum and who had a wife named Elizabeth Mann. He made a living returning stolen property for rewards, and was eventually executed on charges of abetting the thieves in order to get more rewards. We get alternating narration from an a tavern girl who became his housekeeper, and then his second wife after the first died in childbirth. She was obsessed with Wild from her first meeting with him, where he acted insane and tore her dress open. (No, I don't get it, either.) She wanted to bear his child even though he had syphilis. 20th-century Elizabeth also becomes obsessed with having Wild's baby and gets Gideon to extract DNA from the bones so she can be pregnant with a clone. He agrees but wants her to have his baby instead. Gideon's wife also wants a baby but can't have one.
I'll stop here, although I don't think there can be much in the way of spoilers for the this book, as pretty much the whole plot is given away on the back of the book and in the first chapter. You may think, as I did, that this story sounds strange when reduced to bare bones, but in fact it does not make any more sense in the actual telling. I felt that the author was trying so, so hard to be gritty and different and edgy, but only succeeded in making me not care about the story or characters. They were miserable, unlikeable people whose actions and motivations were incomprehensible to me. The only saving graces were that they were fairly well-developed and the writing was decent. This gives me hope that the author could write a good novel when she gets over herself.
Warning: don't read this is you are a fan of cloning/genetic experimentation plot-lines; that aspect doesn't go anywhere.
I'll stop here, although I don't think there can be much in the way of spoilers for the this book, as pretty much the whole plot is given away on the back of the book and in the first chapter. You may think, as I did, that this story sounds strange when reduced to bare bones, but in fact it does not make any more sense in the actual telling. I felt that the author was trying so, so hard to be gritty and different and edgy, but only succeeded in making me not care about the story or characters. They were miserable, unlikeable people whose actions and motivations were incomprehensible to me. The only saving graces were that they were fairly well-developed and the writing was decent. This gives me hope that the author could write a good novel when she gets over herself.
Warning: don't read this is you are a fan of cloning/genetic experimentation plot-lines; that aspect doesn't go anywhere.
October 9, 2013
This book was not as strange as the blurb portrayed it. The cloning aspect was pretty much a red-herring, the Johnathon Wild stuff was fairly pointless too as it didn't make any sense why she was obsessed with this character.
The beginning which suggested something sinister led to not very much as did most of the story threads, which made for a very frustrating read.
Being British I found the sterotypical portrayals of the English and the Scottish extremely irritating. Not to mention being told that English people do this or say this - when actually we don't! For instance the character of Elizabeth says at one point that Gideon says 'trauma' in the way the ALL English people say it rhyming the first syllable with 'cow' - eerrr...no we don't! I have never in my life ever heard anyone pronounce trauma that way
So when it came down to it the story was actually pretty small and banal: a younger woman having an affair with an older married man. The characters were pretty unlikeable and empty, which left nothing for me as a reader to engage with. Even the sex, which was hyped up in the blurb was pretty mundane and repetitive.
On a positive note there were some interesting bits of historical information about the birth of anatomy that I didn't know. Unfortunately it was not enough to make up for the lack of story.
The blurb on the back quoted someone as saying that this was a cross between Georgette Heyer, Daniel Dafoe and the Marquis de Sade - well I am here to tell you that it really, really wasn't!
The beginning which suggested something sinister led to not very much as did most of the story threads, which made for a very frustrating read.
Being British I found the sterotypical portrayals of the English and the Scottish extremely irritating. Not to mention being told that English people do this or say this - when actually we don't! For instance the character of Elizabeth says at one point that Gideon says 'trauma' in the way the ALL English people say it rhyming the first syllable with 'cow' - eerrr...no we don't! I have never in my life ever heard anyone pronounce trauma that way
So when it came down to it the story was actually pretty small and banal: a younger woman having an affair with an older married man. The characters were pretty unlikeable and empty, which left nothing for me as a reader to engage with. Even the sex, which was hyped up in the blurb was pretty mundane and repetitive.
On a positive note there were some interesting bits of historical information about the birth of anatomy that I didn't know. Unfortunately it was not enough to make up for the lack of story.
The blurb on the back quoted someone as saying that this was a cross between Georgette Heyer, Daniel Dafoe and the Marquis de Sade - well I am here to tell you that it really, really wasn't!
Read
February 28, 2008A strange little book with a self-mutilating heroine with a penchant for casual sex and deep-seated father issues. She becomes obsessed with an 18th century outlaw and convinces her current lover, an infertility doctor, to attempt to clone the outlaw in her womb. disturbingly delightful.
February 17, 2018
eredity actually is a dirty book, thank god. Jenny Davidson has written a story that appeals to our lesser angels, and entertains from its first to its last page. Elizabeth Mann, considering murder or suicide, needs to escape New York. In the first of many coincidences she receives a call from an old friend, who edits guide books. Their London researcher has come down with a case of hepatitis. Does she want the job? Elizabeth boards the plane to London, where more coincidences follow. Perhaps they are resonances, as nearly everything that happens in this book happens more than once.
One of her first stops is the Royal College of Surgeons. Elizabeth’s father is a famous gynecologist, an infertility specialist, and she is obsessed with medicine and the body in general. At the college there is a full skeleton on display of the notorious thief catcher and organized crime figure of 18th century London, Jonathan Wild. (Jonathan Wild’s exploits and execution spawned a whole literature from pamphlets to pieces by Defoe and Fielding). Later she runs into Gideon, a former student and colleague of her father’s whom she last saw when she was 15. On page 11 they have graphic, wet sex in his office. On page 14 they do so again. Ah, the rules. Thank god the rules are broken; thank god for dirty books by smart people.
Gideon and Elizabeth go to an auction where Gideon loses out on a blind bid on what he hopes is a lot of antique medical equipment to his despised father-in-law. What he gets instead is a box with a moldy old manuscript that doesn’t interest him at all, but it does Elizabeth, because it is the unpublished memoir of Jonathan Wild’s second wife, Mary. Wild’s first wife, with whom he has a child, happens to be named Elizabeth Mann. As she reads the manuscript she becomes obsessed with Jonathan Wild and decides nhe wants to have his baby. Gideon agrees to attempt to clone Wild from the skeleton and implant the embryo in Elizabeth.
The plot knocks about between the two stories. Elizabeth finds herself in sticky situations with other men, with Gideon’s wife and his senile mother. Elizabeth is a matter-of-fact narrator. She drinks a lot, cuts herself with razors and screws Gideon just about everywhere. It is all decadent fun, but it is also a novel about fathers and sons, father’s and daughters, husbands, wives and lovers. It is a novel about paternity and adultery in the end.
Davidson’s book is a lot of fun to read. I’m not sure that it’s consequential, or that it’s supposed to be. She is a professor of 18th century English literature and culture and has written academic books. Fortunately this doesn’t ruin her prose style or her sense of fun. It does infuse the narrative with wit and intelligence, to balance out the low life lust and alcoholic vomiting. If her research shows a bit in the Wild narrative, so what? The Wild portions race along anyway, with, sadly, only hints here and there of 18th century prose.
In a bit I’ve read quoted by an interviewer Elizabeth describes to Miranda (Gideon’s wife) the kind of novel she wants to write:
‘“It’s about organized crime, really. Gangs of thieves fencing stolen goods. Charismatic gang-leaders. Random acts of violence.”
Miranda’s taken aback. ‘A kind of mystery novel?’ she suggests.
‘Well, detective fiction,’ I say. ‘You know. Noir. Raymond Chandler. Chester Himes. Derek Raymond. Robbe-Grillet and the French new novel. No psychology. Lots of brutal sex and violence. Man reduced to sheer environment.’”
The reviewer, or interviewer, thought this was an apt description of Heredity. I disagree. Elizabeth has a past. She argues with herself and with Gideon about what that past means for her present. Decisions are seen as the consequence of childhood experience, of unnameable emotions, repressed desires and unconscious drives. There’s actually an argument about psychology running in the narrative. There are suggestions of Freudian psychoanalytic concepts, contrasted with a hard-wired psychology based on heredity. It’s not insistent; like everything else in this book it’s just there for the picking. And the sex is mostly brutal in the 18th century. The brutality in the present is not sexual, it’s social, and familial. Well, there’s plenty of Freud in that. But I will have to find out who Derek Raymond is.
The book takes a serious turn towards the end. It made me reconsider what went before, but it did not spoil the fun, it perhaps deepened the shadows. And this serious turn is mirrored in the Wild narrative.
Davidson has written two books for young adults. I would like to read these too, but I hope she writes more adult novels. There’s no money in it, no, but she’s too good to deprive us of stories like Heredity.
One of her first stops is the Royal College of Surgeons. Elizabeth’s father is a famous gynecologist, an infertility specialist, and she is obsessed with medicine and the body in general. At the college there is a full skeleton on display of the notorious thief catcher and organized crime figure of 18th century London, Jonathan Wild. (Jonathan Wild’s exploits and execution spawned a whole literature from pamphlets to pieces by Defoe and Fielding). Later she runs into Gideon, a former student and colleague of her father’s whom she last saw when she was 15. On page 11 they have graphic, wet sex in his office. On page 14 they do so again. Ah, the rules. Thank god the rules are broken; thank god for dirty books by smart people.
Gideon and Elizabeth go to an auction where Gideon loses out on a blind bid on what he hopes is a lot of antique medical equipment to his despised father-in-law. What he gets instead is a box with a moldy old manuscript that doesn’t interest him at all, but it does Elizabeth, because it is the unpublished memoir of Jonathan Wild’s second wife, Mary. Wild’s first wife, with whom he has a child, happens to be named Elizabeth Mann. As she reads the manuscript she becomes obsessed with Jonathan Wild and decides nhe wants to have his baby. Gideon agrees to attempt to clone Wild from the skeleton and implant the embryo in Elizabeth.
The plot knocks about between the two stories. Elizabeth finds herself in sticky situations with other men, with Gideon’s wife and his senile mother. Elizabeth is a matter-of-fact narrator. She drinks a lot, cuts herself with razors and screws Gideon just about everywhere. It is all decadent fun, but it is also a novel about fathers and sons, father’s and daughters, husbands, wives and lovers. It is a novel about paternity and adultery in the end.
Davidson’s book is a lot of fun to read. I’m not sure that it’s consequential, or that it’s supposed to be. She is a professor of 18th century English literature and culture and has written academic books. Fortunately this doesn’t ruin her prose style or her sense of fun. It does infuse the narrative with wit and intelligence, to balance out the low life lust and alcoholic vomiting. If her research shows a bit in the Wild narrative, so what? The Wild portions race along anyway, with, sadly, only hints here and there of 18th century prose.
In a bit I’ve read quoted by an interviewer Elizabeth describes to Miranda (Gideon’s wife) the kind of novel she wants to write:
‘“It’s about organized crime, really. Gangs of thieves fencing stolen goods. Charismatic gang-leaders. Random acts of violence.”
Miranda’s taken aback. ‘A kind of mystery novel?’ she suggests.
‘Well, detective fiction,’ I say. ‘You know. Noir. Raymond Chandler. Chester Himes. Derek Raymond. Robbe-Grillet and the French new novel. No psychology. Lots of brutal sex and violence. Man reduced to sheer environment.’”
The reviewer, or interviewer, thought this was an apt description of Heredity. I disagree. Elizabeth has a past. She argues with herself and with Gideon about what that past means for her present. Decisions are seen as the consequence of childhood experience, of unnameable emotions, repressed desires and unconscious drives. There’s actually an argument about psychology running in the narrative. There are suggestions of Freudian psychoanalytic concepts, contrasted with a hard-wired psychology based on heredity. It’s not insistent; like everything else in this book it’s just there for the picking. And the sex is mostly brutal in the 18th century. The brutality in the present is not sexual, it’s social, and familial. Well, there’s plenty of Freud in that. But I will have to find out who Derek Raymond is.
The book takes a serious turn towards the end. It made me reconsider what went before, but it did not spoil the fun, it perhaps deepened the shadows. And this serious turn is mirrored in the Wild narrative.
Davidson has written two books for young adults. I would like to read these too, but I hope she writes more adult novels. There’s no money in it, no, but she’s too good to deprive us of stories like Heredity.
September 4, 2013
This book was terrible. The main character is completely pathetic. She allows her daddy issues to define her character and justify her actions. The story itself holds promise but the author never carries through. A complete disappointment.
November 4, 2021
A very weird gem of the early 2000s, when cloning was all the rage, featuring a very likeable 'unlikeable' protagonist, and a wonderfully zany 18th century pastiche. Only three stars, though, because there are some muddled revelations at the very end of the book which, because they were presented with extreme brevity, seemed insane and out of place to me. Still a really quirky, interesting read.
December 6, 2008
i randomly bought this from a thrift store after picking it up & reading a few lines, & ended up loving it. it's smart & odd & reads quickly.
June 5, 2013
Well written, very interesting story of literary sleuthing, relationships, and reproductive technology.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews