Intuition

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Powell's Books
Published by: Dial Press Trade
Pages: 400
ISBN13: 978-0385336109

Synopsis

A brash publicity-seeking oncologist, an exacting scientist driven by love of her research, and an ambitious young postdoctoral fellow are among the characters that populate this mesmerizing novel. Intuition, like all of Allegra Goodman’s compelling fiction, is at once intricate mystery and rich human drama.

Praise

“The laboratory [Goodman] presents is not dull and clinical but a place pulsing with passion . . . Goodman pulls off an almost Victorian dedication to character in this novel . . . The result is a compelling hybrid; a morality tale that is old-fashioned but, in its own resplendent way, remarkably contemporary.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Rarely has a novel so deeply probed the thoughts and actions of physicians and scientists as they strive to succeed. It lifts the veil off this world and exposes its promise and peril.”
—Dr. Jerome Groopman, Slate

“Superb . . . A delicate analysis of how an ethics scandal filters through the sensibility of brilliant and brilliantly realized characters. It's a tricky operation that Goodman performs with the precision of a scientist and the flair of an artist at the top of her game. Grade: A.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“Just when you think you understand what makes her characters tick, Goodman reveals a bit of their past and forces you to adjust your conclusions. Nothing is quite what it seems. You can trust Intuition to keep up the suspense.”
—Newsweek

“Intuition comes at what seems to be a very good time for character-driven fiction . . . Every character here . . . is endowed by their creator with the fullest complements of flaws, tics, vices, strengths, virtues and moments of nobility . . . Goodman presides over her universe with a light and sometimes funny touch.”
—Washington Post Book World

“Just when one character's perspective is comfortable, the narration switches and allows a view into what another is thinking. Sometimes the shifts are so quick and dramatic, they underscore the murder-mystery-like feel of suspense in the novel, complete with a large cast of characters and a narrator who knows it all but chooses carefully what to reveal.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“[Goodman's] characters so live and breathe on the page that they could get up and make you a cup of coffee while you finish the next chapter. Intuition is a stunning achievement.”
—The Economist

“Expertly drawn . . . Ms. Goodman assembles a large, well-drawn cast and skillfully balances the viewpoints of the six or eight characters who drive the action . . . [She] never turnsIntuition into a morality tale or a whodunnit. She hints at her ultimate purpose in her title: to explore and contrast different ways of knowing.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Winningly original . . . Goodman transports us in a fugue state of first-class storytelling from the bare-bones basement of the Phipott to the gleaming halls of Congress and back . . .bring[ing] us that much closer to the heart of the matter: what it means to be—merely, magnificently—human.”
—Elle

“Believe it or not, a thriller and a page-turner about scientific fraud. Brilliant.”
—Lionel Shriver, Guardian

“The omniscient narrative nimbly shifts perspective among a small number of complex characters to produce a Rashamon-like inquiry into truth and motive.”
—The New Yorker

“Her portrayals of these scientists, in and out of their lab coats, are of the richest texture.”
—Vogue

“[L]ike a modern-day Jane Austen, Goodman is a splendid observer of personalities, their interactions and hidden doubts. Her special gift is examining human nature, its weaknesses and its strengths, through a narrow lens.”
—USA Today

“Goodman writes with wit and intelligence . . . This is a novel not merely about questions of integrity in one lab, or even merely about science, but also about the depth of our commitment to and desire for work and discovery.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“With a minimum of jargon and a maximum of insight, Goodman shows us inside the tightly knit world of the research community . . . Deeply involving.”
—Seattle Times

“Goodman drills with breathtaking precision to her characters' cores . . .Their foibles, flaws, and feats are the soul of Intuition, a novel set in a research lab but more deeply concerned with the pitfalls of ambition.”
—Denver Post

“. . . a brilliant careful rendering of the minds and moral dilemmas of the scientific community.”
—Gail Caldwell, Boston Globe

“Deliciously nuanced . . .Serious yet so entertaining . . . Goodman's Intuition penetrates an absorbing, small world—to show us a larger one in which self-knowledge is as elusive as scientific achievement. And certainly as hard-won.”
—New York Daily News

“This is a wonderful novel . . . Allegra Goodman is no longer a "writer to watch." She's here, and the novel-reading public is all the better for it.”
—Washington Times

“. . . Goodman invokes the world of medical research with the convincing detail of an insider and an outsider's penetrating gaze. The book is a modern epic, a slimmed-down, suspenseful version of one of the 19th-century classics: a narrative about large social forces that is also a tale of unhappy lovers and broken-up research families . . . This is moral fiction without moralizing, in the tradition of Jane Austen—and, for that matter, Philip Roth.”
—The Forward

“The writer Allegra Goodman is not a scientist, but she certainly could have fooled me.”
—Nature

“There's nobody else like her writing today.”
—Boston Globe

“Like a modern-day Jane Austen, Goodman is a splendid observer of personalities—their interactions and hidden doubts.”
—USA Today

“I've got a new comeback to those who dismiss contemporary fiction. I'm just going to hit them over the head with Allegra Goodman's new novel, Intuition, and hope it knocks some sense and humility into them.”
—Maureen Corrigan, National Public Radio

“How could an outsider, someone who has not been bathed in the culture and mores of science, get it so right?”
—Gina Kolata, New York Times