Eileen Pollack – författare

A research biologist hunts for a genetic disease marker that could hold the key to her fate—and those of two people she loves: "Absorbing." —Publishers WeeklyA young researcher at MIT, Jane Weiss is obsessed with finding the genetic marker for Valentine''s Disease, a neurodegenerative disorder. Her pursuit is deeply personal—Valentine''s killed her mother, and she and her freewheeling sister, Laurel, could be genetic carriers; each has a fifty percent chance of developing the disease. Having seen firsthand the devastating effect Valentine''s had on her parents'' marriage, Jane is terrified she might become a burden on whomever she falls in love with and so steers clear of romantic entanglement. Then, the summer before her father''s second wedding, Jane falls hard for her future stepbrother, Willie. But Willie''s father also died from Valentine''s, raising the odds that their love will end in tragedy.When Willie bolts at a crucial moment in their relationship, Jane becomes obsessed with finding the genetic marker to the disease that threatens both their families. But if she succeeds in making history, will she and her sister have the courage to face what this newfound knowledge could mean for their lives? A Perfect Life is a thought-provoking, emotionally resonant novel of scientific discovery and self-discovery, about learning how to embrace life and love, no matter what may come."Highly compelling . . . Pollack''s pacing is dramatic and the story line particularly gripping." —Paula McLain, New York Times–bestselling author of The Paris Wife "[An] absorbing genetic mystery that is couched in a complicated love story and a tale of survival . . . gritty romance and medical suspense." —Publishers Weekly"As smart and thought-provoking as it is moving." —Celeste Ng, New York Times–bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

A bracingly honest exploration of why there are still so few women in the hard sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science In 2005, when Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard, asked why so few women, even today, achieve tenured positions in the hard sciences, Eileen Pollack set out to find the answer. A successful fiction writer, Pollack had grown up in the 1960s and ’70s dreaming of a career as a theoretical astrophysicist. Denied the chance to take advanced courses in science and math, she nonetheless made her way to Yale. There, despite finding herself far behind the men in her classes, she went on to graduate summa cum laude, with honors, as one of the university’s first two women to earn a bachelor of science degree in physics. And yet, isolated, lacking in confidence, starved for encouragement, she abandoned her ambition to become a physicist.Years later, spurred by the suggestion that innate differences in scientific and mathematical aptitude might account for the dearth of tenured female faculty at Summer’s institution, Pollack thought back on her own experiences and wondered what, if anything, had changed in the intervening decades. Based on six years interviewing her former teachers and classmates, as well as dozens of other women who had dropped out before completing their degrees in science or found their careers less rewarding than they had hoped, The Only Woman in the Room is a bracingly honest, no-holds-barred examination of the social, interpersonal, and institutional barriers confronting women—and minorities—in the STEM fields. This frankly personal and informed book reflects on women’s experiences in a way that simple data can’t, documenting not only the more blatant bias of another era but all the subtle disincentives women in the sciences still face.The Only Woman in the Room shows us the struggles women in the sciences have been hesitant to admit, and provides hope for changing attitudes and behaviors in ways that could bring far more women into fields in which even today they remain seriously underrepresented.Named one of the notable nonfiction books of 2015 by The Washington PostFrom the Hardcover edition.

Eileen is too smart for the third grade, but when she gets a chance to be skipped ahead, she fails the test. The clownish school psychologist tries to gain her trust with an offer of Oreos, but she refuses. After all, he is a stranger and might try to poison her! This is the start of the author’s love-hate relationship with the rules as they were laid out for a girl in the 1960s and as they persist in some form today. As she ascends through a physics degree at Yale that dashes her hopes for love and romance, to a post-graduate summer that leaves her “peed on, shot at, and kidnapped,” to a marriage of supposed equals in which she is expected to do all the housework, child-rearing, and bill paying and make sure the Roto-Rooter guy arrives on time, Pollack shares with poignant humor the trials of being smart and female in a world in which women are rarely appreciated for both their bodies and their minds. Maybe It’s Me is a question all women have asked themselves. But Pollack’s message will resonate with readers of all genders as a story of the very human search for connection, love, acceptance, and self-respect. The author of the groundbreaking memoir The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys’ Club, Pollack proves that even in her sixties, wiser and more bruised but no less hilarious, she is still very much in the game.

Professor Maxine Sayers once found her personal and professional life so fulfilling that she founded the Institute of Future Studies, a program dedicated to studying the effects of technology on our culture and finding ways to prolong human life. But when her beloved husband dies, she is so devastated she can barely get out of bed. To make matters worse, her son, Zach, has abruptly quit his job in Silicon Valley and been out of contact for seven months. Maxine is jolted from her grief by her sudden suspicion that a favorite former student (and a former close friend of her son) might be a terrorist called the Technobomber and that Zach might either be involved in or become a victim of this extremist’s bombing. Deserting her teaching responsibilities, her ailing mother, and an appealing suitor, Maxine feels compelled to set out and search for her son in order to warn and protect him, even as she knows she should report her suspicions to the FBI to prevent greater carnage.Inspired by the true story of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and his studies at the University of Michigan, The Professor of Immortality is a gripping, heartfelt look at the way we might or might not choose to respond to recent advances in science and technology, that, despite their positive impact, also threaten to destroy our environment, our privacy, our ability to connect with nature, and our sense of life’s authentic meaning and purpose.

Professor Maxine Sayers once found her personal and professional life so fulfilling that she founded the Institute of Future Studies, a program dedicated to studying the effects of technology on our culture and finding ways to prolong human life. But when her beloved husband dies, she is so devastated she can barely get out of bed. To make matters worse, her son, Zach, has abruptly quit his job in Silicon Valley and been out of contact for seven months. Maxine is jolted from her grief by her sudden suspicion that a favorite former student (and a former close friend of her son) might be a terrorist called the Technobomber and that Zach might either be involved in or become a victim of this extremist’s bombing. Deserting her teaching responsibilities, her ailing mother, and an appealing suitor, Maxine feels compelled to set out and search for her son in order to warn and protect him, even as she knows she should report her suspicions to the FBI to prevent greater carnage.Inspired by the true story of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and his studies at the University of Michigan, The Professor of Immortality is a gripping, heartfelt look at the way we might or might not choose to respond to recent advances in science and technology, that, despite their positive impact, also threaten to destroy our environment, our privacy, our ability to connect with nature, and our sense of life’s authentic meaning and purpose.