The Man Without a Shadow
Author | Oates, Joyce Carol |
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Year | 2016 |
First published | 2016 |
Number of pages | 384 |
Edition | First US Hardcover |
ISBN | 9780062416094 |
Keywords | scientist main character, women in science, cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology (experimental), scientific ethics, historical, female scientist, FMS Library Book |
Abstract
Margot Sharpe is a promising graduate
student working in an innovative neuroscience lab when she is first introduced
to Elihu Hoopes in the fall of 1965. Elihu Hoopes is an attractive, charming,
captivating individual. He is artistic and athletic, funny and eager. He also
happens to be her experimental subject, an amnesiac who can only remember the
previous seventy seconds before his memory resets. He can’t form new memories and
the memories of his past are broken and erratic. Margot works with the
brilliant Milton Ferris exploring the mysteries of the brain, using Elihu
Hoopes as their experimental subject. Over the next thirty years she grows as a scientist,
publishing
numerous papers and cultivating a growing reputation in the field of
neuroscience. Elihu meanders through a confused life, mentally stalled at the
age of 37, haunted by disturbing images of a drowned eleven-year-old girl. Margot
finds herself uncontrollably attracted to her patient, but she struggles with
the amnesiac’s questionable ability to reciprocate her feelings. This novel
addresses issues such as scientific ethics, loneliness, love and aging (FMS-Bailey).