Chapter 1, Found Summary and Analysis

Russ Rymer is a journalist who heard about Genie's case in a passing comment from a linguist at the University of Illinois. This led Rymer to send an article proposal to The New Yorker. In time, despite the reluctance of the scientists to speak to Rymer, he became obsessed with Genie's story, befriended her mother, and decided to turn the article into a full length book.

It has long been a question for scientists throughout history to discover exactly how a child learns to talk. In the late seventh century BC, the king of Egypt took two children and sent them to live isolated in a shepherd's hut to find out if they would learn to speak even without hearing speech. These two children apparently learned to ask for bread in the language of the Phrygians, a language the...