Allegra Goodman

Allegra Goodman is one of those ridiculous prodigies who managed to sustain and build on her early buzz. Her first collection of stories, Total Immersion, was written while she was an undergraduate at Harvard, and she’s since published another collection and a couple of novels, including the remarkable Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Intuition initially seems like a bit of a departure, but on closer inspection, the book explores many of the writer’s signature preoccupations. Goodman is particularly adept at zeroing in on individuals within closed communities and intensely collaborative situations. In this case, that means a cash-strapped research lab where a group of scientists believes it has stumbled onto a cure for cancer. When the discovery is scrutinized and deemed fraudulent, Goodman’s novel becomes a mystery that addresses such complex and timely subjects as medical ethics and unchecked human ambition.