Generosity by Powers Richard

Author:Powers, Richard [Powers, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2009-09-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chance grows like a tumor in Stone. Ever since Thassa went to Boston, he’s been plagued by the body’s code, the twenty thousand genes hatching their million protein votes into his heart, lungs, and flooded brain. In the dark, safely on his end of the phone line, he asks the counselor, “How programmed are we?”

Candace will not fictionalize for him. The data keep accumulating: impulsivity, aggression, anxiety, self-destruction—all heritable. The genetic contribution to addictive behavior: 30 to 50 percent. Anorexia and bulimia: a 70 percent genetic component. “But still, the students who come to see me change. They can get better.”

“From talking to you? Or from drugs?”

“From both. The point is, for better or worse, will and words make a difference.”

“How much of a difference?”

For whatever reason, she humors his despair. “I don’t know, Russell. How much is enough? Did I ever tell you about my tightrope lessons? For my final exam, I walked across a twelve-foot gap on a piece of hemp half the width of my foot. Twenty feet in the air. And I’m terrified of standing on a footstool. Turns out, you just take one baby step. Then another. I’ve seen it happen. Temperament can self-modify. People can get free, or at least a little freer. And then a little more.”

“But not as free as we’re bred to believe we are.”

“Gosh, Russell. You make life sound like a sadistic experiment.”

“Let’s just say the grant proposal would never have passed my ethics board.”

“Hope is useful, man. It keeps us moving.”

“I see. Like a hamster wheel?”

He likes the sound of her midnight sigh.

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