Perspective

The author of A Feeling for the Organism is Evelyn Fox Keller, a female geneticist whose career began two generations after McClintock's. She wrote the book in the early-1980s, when McClintock was finally earning her well-deserved reputation as a revolutionary within the field of genetics due to her early and prescient work on the process of transposition. When Keller was in graduate school, McClintock was something of a legend. Her reclusiveness and solitary research method only added to her status. When Keller decided to write the book, she was unsure whether she would be able to convince McClintock to give her an interview. And sure enough, McClintock refused. However, she did speak to Keller for over five hours, much to Keller's delight. Keller describes being star struck when she met McClintock.

Keller's perspective, therefore, is one of deep admiration for the uniqueness, perseverance and genius of Barbara...