The Writing Life of James D. Watson

  • Errol C. Friedberg
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press: 2005. 193 pp. $25, £18 0879697008 | ISBN: 0-879-69700-8
The write idea? In The Double Helix, James Watson gave a personal account of the quest for the structure of DNA. Credit: E. C. FRIEDBERG, THE WRITING LIFE OF JAMES D. WATSON

The Double Helix would on its own have established James Watson's reputation as a writer: it is the only book about science to appear in both the board's and the readers' lists of the Modern Library's top 100 non-fiction works. But Watson's textbooks have also given scientists, particularly students, a deeper understanding of genes and cells. And his popular-science books have given the public a new image of scientific research. The Writing Life of James D. Watson examines these achievements.

Watson was brought up to believe in the importance of books and reliable knowledge. He read widely and particularly enjoyed books by Graham Greene and Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis. Reading Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? at the age of 17, Watson became convinced that genes were the essence of life and decided devote his own to their study. By the age of 25 he had, with Francis Crick, discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

In relating this story in The Double Helix, Watson set out to produce a good story that the public would enjoy as much as The Great Gatsby. He started writing in 1962 with the working title “Honest Jim”, which is illuminating in itself. The Writing Life of James D. Watson includes images of both the hand-written manuscript and the galley proofs. Indeed, almost half of Friedberg's book is devoted to photographs of text and letters, and of Watson and friends — they take up too much space, I think.

A draft of The Double Helix sent to Crick and Maurice Wilkins, a co-discoverer of the double helix, began: “I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood.” This upset them so much that they threatened legal action. Harvard University Press was due to publish the book, but concerns about its libellous potential, and Watson's refusal to change the text, caused them to withdraw, so Athenaeum Press published it instead. Watson was delighted that Lawrence Bragg agreed to write a foreword.

The great X-ray crystallographer J. D. Bernal could not put the book down, but thought it was particularly unfair to Rosalind Franklin. Initial reviews were mixed, but Peter Medawar wrote that “it will be an enormous success, and deserves to be so — a classic in the sense that it will go on being read.” He was, as usual, right. Yet Crick found it difficult to take Watson's account seriously, although he did appreciate the quality of the writing.

Watson's skill as a writer is illustrated by this description of Rosalind Franklin. “Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might even have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English bluestocking adolescents.” Would that other scientists could write as well as that. Of his later memoir Genes, Girls and Gamow, some said that his style broke new ground with its postmodern innovatory syntax, but others were critical of both its literary style and its content. It is a pity that there are few examples of Watson's writing in Friedberg's book, nor any real analysis of the way he writes.

In all Watson's writing — from director's reports for the laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor to the popular-science books A Passion for DNA and The DNA Story — his strong character emerges: his sarcasm, criticism and praise make it clear what he thinks. His love of science and DNA always comes through, as does his contempt for his enemies.

Not content with overturning the public's view of science, Watson has also had a major influence on science textbooks. His Molecular Biology of the Gene established a new style for textbooks — using concepts as crossheads, for example — which has been much copied. Gavin Borden, publisher of the 63-volume James Joyce Archive, was keen to publish college biology textbooks and approached Watson. They began assembling authors, who gathered at Watson's home at Martha's Vineyard in the summer of 1978, and Molecular Biology of the Cell was born. Experts who reviewed chapters were sure it was too difficult to be an undergraduate text, but Watson was convinced that it was just what was needed — and he was, of course, right. It is both beautiful and enormously successful.

The Writing Life of James D. Watson provides valuable insights into the process that led to this success. His contribution to solving the structure of DNA was highly significant, but if he and Crick had not worked out the structure, Franklin and Aaron Klug would have done so soon afterwards. Watson himself regards his writing, which could not have been done by anyone else, as an even greater achievement than his work on DNA that led to a Nobel prize.