Lab Girl
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An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world. Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life but it is also so much more. "Lab Girl" is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren's remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom's labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done with both the heart and the hands; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work. Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them from the Midwest across the United States and back again, over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home. Jahren's probing look at plants, her astonishing tenacity of spirit, and her acute insights on nature enliven every page of this extraordinary book. "Lab Girl" opens your eyes to the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal. Here is an eloquent demonstration of what can happen when you find the stamina, passion, and sense of sacrifice needed to make a life out of what you truly love, as you discover along the way the person you were meant to be. -- Publisher description.
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I don't really know what to make of this one. I really liked Jahren's discussion of botany and chemistry when it was happening. Jahren is hard on people: her students, her co-workers, but also herself and she pulled no punches in describing herself, which led to challenging passages where I was cringing at her condescension towards colleagues and students. I liked how she depicted herself learning and growing, and making her way through bipolar disease. It was truly vulnerable and authentic. Nonetheless, I don't think I'd send one of my students to rotate through her lab – it's clear that she embraces the sort of work-to-death environment that academia is struggling to grow out of.
Speaking of generation gaps, I was surprised to find that Jahren has barely more than a decade on me. From the way she described being a woman in science, I would have guessed more like three decades. Indeed, many of her faculty members were women, and my own experience in overlapping years in the life sciences was that there was very little overt sexism.
I loved reading about her relationship with Bill, her lab manager, but I note his conspicuous absence from the press releases, her lab website and many of her publications. It's hard to read about how she sees him as a partner while he's underpaid and underacknowledged for the work he does. Finding grants to pay people is brutal – I know that personally – but now she's a big deal and he could have fancy titles and a nice profile on the lab website but he's not even mentioned. Perhaps that's how he wants it, but it's weird to write a book about your friendship with an employee and then not use any of your employer privileges to support said employee.
I was thrown by the beginning, as she basically glosses over graduate school and job-hunting, which are no cake-walk, but I eventually appreciated that she wanted to give deeper attention to a certain period of her career. I know a lot of scientists in their PhD/post-doc/job application period, and it made me think “this book is disconnected from reality” when it started off breezing through all that like it was nothing. Unfortunately that was sort of my strongest feeling about it. Except that I really liked Bill.
