Menachems Seed [Hardcover]

Carl Djerassi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997

In Menachem's Seed, Carl Djerassi, world-renowned scientist and inventor of the birth-control pill, brings us a new novel that explores the human--and passionate--side of science.

Melanie Laidlaw and Menachem Dvir meet at a series of international conferences where jet-setting scientists come together to discuss the global implications of their discoveries. Melanie runs a foundation that awards grants for innovations in reproductive technology; Menachem is an infertile nuclear engineer and a married man. Naturally, they fall in love.

What follows is a story of sexual steam, stolen seed, and religious conversion--a very modern romance that hinges on a cutting-edge scientific breakthrough. As Melanie and Menachem discover, what science makes possible, only two hearts can make right.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

While they are participants at a series of international conferences on science and world affairs, Melanie Laidlaw and Menachem Dvir become lovers. Menachem is an Israeli nuclear engineer; Melanie serves as director of an American foundation supporting reproductive biology research. Both are middle-aged, and while he is infertile and married, she is widowed and childless. Their involvement sets the scene for a series of developments that Djerassi fans will enjoy. In previous books (e.g., The Bourbaki Gambit, LJ 8/94), Stanford chemistry professor Djerassi often examined the ethical behavior of scientists. Here, he turns his attention to fertility issues; if one "steals" one's lover's sperm, for instance, what are the religious, ethical, and personal ramifications? Recommended for general collections.?Ellen R. Cohen, Rockville, Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The third and best volume in the author's ``science-in- fiction'' tetralogy (Cantor's Dilemma, 1989; The Bourbaki Gambit, 1994). Djerassi (Chemistry/Stanford) takes an upbeat view of the kinds of international scientific conferences so scathingly described by Arthur Koestler in The Party Girls. Here, Melanie Laidlaw, 35, a childless American widow, directs fund-giving by a foundation for reproductive biology. At a conference in Kirschberg, Austria, she falls in love with a 50-year-old Israeli nuclear engineer and policy wog by the name of Menachem Dvir. Dvir's wife, it happens, was paralyzed in an auto accident 20 years ago while he was driving. He's also infertile as a result of overexposure to radiation. Melanie, meanwhile, is tapped by a group that's pioneering in vitro fertilization and needs funds from her foundation. She has already had a second tryst with Dvir at a new conference, and it's there that the idea occurs to her of stealing her lover's sperm, having the needy in vitro group fertilize one of her eggs, and bearing his child without his knowledge. This leads Djerassi into a full-dress review of the early years of in vitro fertilization, while a review of Dvir's undercover ties with a PLO policy market is covered so thoroughly that one feels well informed about Middle East politics. Also, the nonreligious Melanie decides to have her son born to a Jewish mother and so undertakes confirmation as a Reform Jew, which Djerassi details in great depth. Will Menachem accept his son (or seed)? Djerassi fudges the obligatory Tolstoyan face-off between Melanie and Menachem, but leaves the reader satisfied despite this shortfall. A great novel? No. But absolutely strong and real. Bravo, professor. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press; 1 edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820319252
• ISBN-13: 978-0820319254
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,727,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

CARL DJERASSI, born in Vienna but educated in the US, is a writer and professor of chemistry emeritus at Stanford University. Author of over 1200 scientific publications and seven monographs, he is one of the few American scientists to have been awarded both the National Medal of Science (in 1973, for the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive--"the Pill") and the National Medal of Technology (in 1991, for promoting new approaches to insect control). A member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the Royal Society (London) and many other foreign academies, Djerassi has received 24 honorary doctorates together with numerous other honors, such as the first Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the first Award for the Industrial Application of Science from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society's highest award, the Priestley Medal, and more recently, the Erasmus Medal of the Academia Europaea (2003), the Great Merit Cross of Germany (2003), the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Chemists (2004), the Serono Prize in Literature (Rome, 2005) and and the Great Silver Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria (2008). In 2005, the Austrian Post Office issued a stamp in his honor.


During the past 23 years, he has published short stories, poetry (The Clock runs backward) and five novels (Cantor's Dilemma; The Bourbaki Gambit; Marx, deceased; Menachem's Seed; NO)--that illustrate as "science-in-fiction" the human side of science and the personal conflicts faced by scientists--as well as an autobiography (The Pill, Pygmy Chimps and Degas' Horse), a memoir (THIS MAN'S PILL: Reflections on the 50th birthday of the Pill), a docudrama (Four Jews on Parnassus--a Conversation,) and seven plays: An Immaculate Misconception, Oxygen (written with Roald Hoffmann), Calculus, EGO, Phallacy, Taboos, and Foreplay.


Djerassi is the founder of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program near Woodside, California, which provides residencies and studio space for artists in the visual arts, literature, choreography and performing arts, and music. Over 2000 artists have passed through that program since its inception in 1982. Djerassi lives in San Francisco, Vienna, and London.

(There is a Web site about Carl Djerassi's writing at http://www.djerassi.com)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nope..., March 16, 2003

By 

Cathy Castro (Somerville, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Menachem's Seed: A Novel (Paperback)

Carls Djerassis novel Menachems Seed tells a complex story about people who have to face moral dilemmas created by reproductive technology. Carl Djerassi, the creator of the birth control pill, is very familiar with this theme. The fact that the book was written by a biochemist is clear from the beginning. His digressions on scientific matters are sound throughout the whole novel. Djerassi also raises interesting questions about ethics in science and also about ethics in relationships between men and women. His purpose in writing this book was to bring these issues to public attention, but unfortunately his literary talents do not reach the same level as his scientific achievements, and his lack of artistic imagination renders his prose dry and the characters stiff and lifeless. As a result he may lose many of his readers in first chapters of the book.
Menachems Seed raises serious ethical questions about human reproduction by weaving them into a love story between an Israeli nuclear physicist, Menachem Dvir, and an American biochemist, Melanie Laidlaw. The protagonists meet at an international scientific conference and fall in love with each other. Melanies work allows her to learn about the newest achievements in fertility science. Recently widowed, she decides to use new biotechnology in order to become a mother. But does Menachem have right to know that Melanie is going to use his sperm? Slowly the story becomes a great cooking pot into which the author adds more and more ingredients. If biotechnology is not yet as developed as it is in Djerassis novel, it may soon reach that level, and the questions which the author raises will be faced in real life. From this perspective, the book is a great achievement.
Yet if we think of Djerassi as a cook he has definitely ruined the stew. The cooking pot of Menachems Seed was a great opportunity for the author to create serious food for thought. The ingredients are quite flavorful: science, politics, history, love, sex, and religion. The basic recipe was good too: a story with an ethical dilemma. Anyone reader who reads such a recipe would feel hungry. However, the disappointment comes after the first bite. Djerassis vocabulary is too small and frustratingly repetitive. For example, the word murmur appears eight times by page 142, and three times in the same five pages. Finally, the bland character development and insipid eroticism in the sex scenes make this meal unappetizing.
This book may be interesting for those who really care about ethical issues in science and who have enough patience to finish it. In general, I would not recommend this book to anyone. Djerassis attempt to draw public attention to an important problem fails completely because of his shortcomings as a writer.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine read, August 23, 1998

By 

"earllantern" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Menachems Seed (Hardcover)

Djerassi opens a world unseen by most, the world of the scientific elite. This is the first Djerassi book I've read, but it most certainly will not be the last.

This book has a strong female lead with impressive professional drive and a male lead just as passionate about his own beliefs. I found the scientific and cultural digressions much more enjoyable than the political asides. Not that the political asides were all bad, but many of them did supply the book with most of its unappealing aspects and I found the reading became a bit laborious during those segments.

MS is full of moral dilemmas and ethical quandries, and Djerassi displays an impressive ear for dialogue as his characters voice those issues to each other. This book is sort of like an army stew which has many varied ingredients but one undeniable discernible feature. The focus of MS is the world of the elite scientists, engineers, and doctors of the world, but there is enough romance, intrigue, and suspense thrown in to keep you happily chewing along.

All of Djerassi's novels feature compelling plots and I'm eager to read them all.

4.0 out of 5 stars Erectile dysfunction remedies told differently, February 9, 2011

By 

Michael Naveh - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Menachem's Seed: A Novel (Paperback)

"Googeling" for information while I've been engaged in a start up developing a new NO (read En Oh) donor drug that should have been used for heart failure prevention but ofcourse had the famous erectile side effect, I've stumbeled upon Djerassie's book.
The story of the early days towards helping us males to avoid erectile dysfunction, is told by a master stroy teller, spinning the tale from medical laboratories in the USA to Israel and back. Could have been true.