Flower of Youth, Shadow of Death
Goshgarian's new name, old horror genre
create a delightful departure.
By Charles Coe
Elixir by Gary Braver
Tom Doherty Associates, Forge, New York, New York
352 pages, $25.95
If someone led you to a secret Fountain of Youth, the waters of which could
keep you in the prime of life for a hundred, two hundred years, or more,
would you drink? Just think about it: the years, the decades woul
d slide by and you'd never age-never see your skin become wrinkled
and covered with liver spots. Never feel your muscles stiffen and creak
and your bones become weak and brittle. Never face the cold reality that
your personal clock was winding down, someday to stop forever.
Sounds tempting, to say the least. But before you drink, think also
of this: you couldn't stay in one place very long without neighbors and
friends noticing that you never seemed to grow older. You could never share
the secret with anyone but your family. You'd watch your mate, your children
grow old and die while your body remained that of a thirty-year-old. And
there's yet another catch: once you taste those waters, you're addicted.
Without regular doses you'd die a painful, horrible death as your body
literally exploded, in a matter of hours, with every disease associated
with old age.
In Elixir, a techno-thriller just published by longtime English professor
Gary Goshgarian (writing under the new nom de plume Gary Braver), these
aren't hypothetical questions; they're real choices faced by a man who
finds himself holding the key to the greatest breakthrough in the history
of modern medicine.
As the novel opens, Christopher Bacon, a medicinal chemist at Boston-based
Darby Pharmaceuticals, is in New Guinea searching for botanical folk medicines
his company can synthesize to create new wonder drugs. While he's there,
one of the locals reveals to him the secret of the most wondrous drug of
all-an orchid called "Tabukari"-with the power to prolong life
indefinitely. Bacon sneaks samples of the orchid back to his Boston lab
and, without telling his superiors at Darby, synthesizes tabulone, the
orchid's active ingredient. Injected into test mice, tabulone dramatically
extends their lives.
Bacon becomes fixated with the idea of taking tabulone, an obsession
fueled by the fear that he will someday share the fate of his father, a
once-brilliant diplomat who languishes in a nursing home with end-stage
Alzheimer's. Bacon has seen his father's mind "bump down the staircase
to nothingness," and although only in his early forties, every time
Bacon misplaces his keys or forgets a name he thinks he may be following
his father prematurely down that same staircase.
Wendy, Bacon's wife, is the only other person who knows about tabulone.
Although she begs him not to take it, she senses that in spite of his passionate
denials he's considering doing so. She's made it very clear that she considers
the drug "unnatural" and wants no part of it; for her, the fact
that life doesn't last forever is exactly what makes it so precious. So
if Bacon takes the drug, he faces the prospect of remaining young while
watching his wife's slow and steady march toward old age and death. And
he realizes there would be no turning back; a single injection creates
an instant and permanent dependency and even a young person who takes the
drug must have regular doses or die. Nevertheless, the lure of extending
his life indefinitely and avoiding his father's fate becomes stronger and
stronger.
When Bacon makes a series of fateful decisions that changes his and
his family's lives forever, Elixir becomes a fasten-your-seatbelt thriller
replete with high-level corporate double-dealing, ruthless underworld figures,
relentless FBI agents, and wild cards like Lamar Fisk, a prophet of apocalypse
with a basement full of automatic weapons who considers biotech the Devil's
work. We even get a cameo from a circa 1986 Ronald Reagan. All this is
woven together seamlessly with never an obvious or clichéd moment.
At a half-dozen or so critical junctures in the story, this reviewer put
the book aside to try to guess what would happen next. Never even came
close.
Elixir is Goshgarian's fourth novel, each of which has been stronger
and more assured than the one before. Interestingly, the name "Braver"
was his publisher's idea (probably in response to the reading public's
well-known aversion to techno-thrillers written by Boston-based English
professors with Armenian surnames). Whatever name they put on the cover,
Elixir has all the signs of being the commercial breakthrough Goshgarian
has been edging toward with his previous works.
Although he obviously had the big screen in mind, Goshgarian demonstrates
that a popular novelist can aim for Hollywood while still producing good
fiction. Some writers whose books are destined for the movies-John Grisham
comes to mind-can serve up interesting plots but don't offer much in character
development. In contrast, Elixir not only gives us a compelling story but
also features characters who are complex and richly textured, and who act
in ways that surprise but make perfect sense given what we come to know
about their personalities.
Elixir has been optioned for film by Scott Free Productions, the people
responsible for blockbusters like Alien, Blade Runner, and Thelma and Louise.
With that in mind, part of the fun of reading a book like this is in playing
the casting game. Who should play Chris Bacon? Nicolas Cage would be a
good pick. Or maybe William Hurt. And what about Wendy Bacon? Somebody
get Susan Sarandon's agent on the cell phone. Lamar Fisk, Witness of the
Holy Apocalypse? Here's a vote for Dennis Hopper.
While he has produced an unabashedly commercial page-turner, Goshgarian/
Braver has also probed, in a profound and often disturbing fashion, some
fundamental questions about the ever-expanding role of biotechnology in
modern life. Cloning is now a reality, and geneticists may soon be able
to "design" babies in utero. Some might find the idea disturbing,
but who's to say that a future generation won't have the option of extending
human life indefinitely? Perhaps Elixir is not only entertaining and provocative
but prophetic as well.
Charles Coe, a program officer with the Massachusetts Cultural Council,
reviewed Gary Goshgarian's previous novel, The Stone Circle, in the September
1997 issue. Coe is a former writer and editor in the University Publications
office.
The Orphan Seal
By Fran Hodgkins
Down East Books, 2000
Every spring, calls reporting stranded baby seals flood into Boston's
New England Aquarium. Hodgkins, AS'87, wrote this children's book about
the actual rescue and rehabilitation of a seal nicknamed Howler. Beautifully
illustrated by Dawn Peterson, the book details the efforts of the aquarium's
Seal Rescue Program, culminating in Howler's return to the wild.
Metropolitan Government and Governance
By G. Ross Stephens and Nelson Wikstrom
Oxford University Press, 2000
Wikstrom, LA'63, professor of political science and public administration
at Virginia Commonwealth University, coauthored this academic study of
the nature of local and metropolitan government and its relationship to
the larger intergovernmental system. The book discusses the range of organizational
options available to urban governments faced with growing problems of decreased
federal funding and increasing demands on quality-of-life concerns. The
authors propose a new model for the future governance of America's urban
areas, arguing that states must assume a more assertive role in the structure
of local government and service delivery in the nation's 300-plus metropolitan
regions.
Stop Out-of-Control Eating
By Karen Anne Bentley
Lovejoy and Lord Publishing, 2000
A self-described teacher of inner peace, Bentley, BHD'88, has created
a five-step daily program for weight loss and permanent weight management.
This program is based on the "Big Heart Way," a spiritually focused
approach teaching love of self and others, inner peace, and guidance from
within.
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