Pulitzer Prize-winning author and cancer geneticist Siddhartha Mukherjee on his new book, the need to acquaint oneself with the vocabulary of genetics and why he never intended for the book to be provocative. Edited excerpts: The Gene, as the subtitle points out, is also an intimate narrative. Did you intend for it to be a memoir all along? I started writing The Gene just a few months after finishing Emperor of All Maladies, sometime in 2011. My interest in the subject stemmed from a very personal space. I started writing about chronological events in the history of genetics and tried to answer questions about who we are and why we are the way we are only to realize that I wanted to answer these questions about myself first. It took me five years to complete the book. The question of my own family’s history hovers throughout the book, but the material I found turned out to be much more provocative and surprising than I had expected. What do genes tell us about human origins? What about race, identity and sexuality? Do genes influence our temperaments and personalities? The book moves from personal history to the history of genes – and finally, to the strange and unnerving influence that genes have on our lives. You dedicate the book to your grandmother and to Carrie Buck, tying together a moment in history that is often forgotten, and a personal history that has had a deep influence on you. Was that deliberate, because you talk in fair detail about the dangers of eugenics and also about how genes can predict the future, but not in absolution? I wanted to tie the historical and the personal into a single narrative. Rather than pulling them apart, I wanted to illustrate just how close history can be to our own lives. The story of eugenics in the book is so striking because we know so little about it. Readers might be particularly surprised about the history of eugenics in America. I also talk about eugenics – or rather dysgenics – in India, another feature that readers might find striking. [related-post] For most readers, the idea of the gene is limited to the nature versus nurture debate. Is that why you chose to explore it through approachable markers such as culture and biology? Yes, the debate is perennial. However, as I show in the book, whether nature or nurture dominates depends on the question one is asking. There is an enormous section on this debate in the book. You might be particularly intrigued by the aspects of anatomy, identity and temperament that are nature versus nurture. There is so much undiscovered about genes that we’re still trying to understand. In the years to come, each and every one of us needs to understand the vocabulary of genetics on a personal level and how genes might influence our bodies, selves, temperaments and identities. In many ways, The Gene is a provocative book. It throws up ideas and teases one to examine things that one has held to be true. Did you intend for it to be so? I did not intend The Gene to be provocative. I tried to understand the story and the facts. The facts themselves provoke deep examinations. We have progressed a great deal in this field but so much is still undiscovered. In the last chapter, I talk about three specific challenges that we face in the future of genetics: understanding what the genome encodes, deciphering how these elements intersect with chance and environments to influence humans forms and fate, and choosing where and how to intervene on the human genome. As a writer, do you find your narrative taking you to places you had originally not planned to go to? If you notice carefully, the book moves from a chronological history to a more thematic study in the second half. I had not expected the second half of The Gene to explore questions of identity and race. What does writing mean to you? When do you write? I write in small bursts and edit deeply. I often write early in the morning or late at night. I usually write on a couch or lying down. Tell us a bit about your current research focus. We are currently trying to understand the formation of blood and bone marrow. My team is working very hard to see how we can use this to find new cures for leukemia. As a doctor, you interact with people confronting their impending death. How does it affect how you think of death? It affects me deeply. I think about death and the confrontation with death all the time. Is there another book in the pipeline? No, I haven’t had the time to think about the next book yet.
