Rowley and Me
2010
“How I came to write this book”
Book Proposal available
from Amanda Mecke, Literary Agent
amecke@earthlink.net
To be completely honest, when I accepted the Rowleys’ offer and became Janet Rowley’s biographer, the prospect of working from home excited me more than anything else. Goodbye, two-hour commutes at the mercy of public transportation. Little did I know, within the two years I spent on the project, the political climate in this country would turn a 180, I would become passionate about ideas I hadn’t given any thought to before, and Janet—who has battled very publicly for science during the past four decades—would finally earn some much deserved recognition.
In late July, Obama announced that he planned to award Janet this country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Of course this came as a massive honor, but I didn’t grasp the magnitude of it until I read the names of the other 15 recipients, among them Stephen Hawking, Desmond Tutu, Sandra Day O’Connor, Harvey Milk, and Sidney Poitier. Those names offered some key perspective because, you see, my primary source in writing this book has been Janet. And Janet is incredibly humble--and private. “I’ve been very lucky,” is the most she’ll say, crediting her achievements to her colleagues and supporters.
Yet, it was Janet alone who found the link between genetics and cancer, a discovery that has changed the way physicians and scientists approach cancer treatment and research.
Her discovery in 1972 led to a drug that today saves ninety percent of the people who take it—though it took thirty years for that drug to become a reality. Thirty years before the United States Food and Drug Administration nodded its go ahead to a targeted therapy. Thirty years before TIME magazine featured a pile of yellow pills imprinted with Gleevec on its cover and called the drug the “new ammunition” in the war on cancer.
Janet is clearly more than the sum of the people around her. When she began researching leukemia in 1962, she learned to maneuver in a man’s world; although she refuses to readily admit any gender discrimination. Through our conversations and through my conversations with Janet’s friends and colleagues, I’ve gained context for her modest interpretation of events.
She comes from a generation in which women belonged in the home; if they chose to play amongst men, they had to accept the ways of men. That was the way things worked in the professional world, just as when Janet applied for medical school at the University of Chicago, and a quota of three women per class delayed her entrance for nine months; she accepted the delay without question, and bided her time in other classes. When Janet began her career, she only worked part-time. She went into her laboratory two or three days a week because she craved a life outside of the confines of work and wanted to spend time with her sons. Janet made her first major discoveries at home, at her dining room table, and because of that she perhaps bypassed many of the direct biases she would have experienced had she gone into work daily. As she explained to me:
"I thought I had it made working three days a week. I could take care of my children, garden, weave, and go to museums. Anyone who was foolish enough to work full time was unfortunate. I was going to keep on with my wonderful life, but it didn't work out like that. Some success awakens in you that you want more success.”
Today Janet’s success is undeniable. Even one of the country’s most resolute conservatives, Leon Kass, respects her. In 2001, as chairman of former president George W. Bush’s Council on Bioethics, Kass phoned Janet and asked her to join the Council, which met quarterly through 2009 to discuss issues such as stem cell research and health care reform. “I’ve since learned that this is a woman who has such a sense of public spirit,” Kass said. “From the time she arrived and for as long as we stayed together, she was zealous in her efforts to make the moral case on the other side. She was there not just as a fellow citizen trying to do the public good, but to defend the cause of science in a world where—from her point of view—science was in danger from ignorance, to some extent ideology, certain religious opinions and so on.”
That public spirit led Obama to award Janet the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her spirit also inspired Janet’s husband, Donald, to call me one afternoon three years ago.
“Kate?” Donald’s deep voice boomed over my office phone. “We need to talk.” At the time, I was writing for the University of Chicago Medical Center’s magazine (with a readership closing in on thirty thousand). I’d just completed a profile of Donald, who had been at the university for more than sixty years. Despite the dean kicking him out of medical school, Donald eventually re-enrolled, graduated, and went on to create the gel electrodes that hospitals continue to use today by the billions for monitoring heart rates.
Donald had called me because he wanted to make a proposal. He wanted me to capture his wife’s life in the same way I’d captured his. He knew someone would write about Janet someday, and he wanted the story to be written with a real understanding of her life and her work.
Basically, Donald was offering to be my patron. He was asking me to quit my job and spend the next two years on this project. I could work from home and make my own schedule. Finding a publisher would be the best possible outcome, but if I didn’t, I would return the manuscript to the Rowleys for their personal archives. My family thought it was risky. My boss said that it was a “once-in-a-lifetime” chance, and urged me to say yes.
When I accepted the offer, I was sitting in the Rowleys’ solarium, watching birds peck at the feeders in the backyard and wondering how I was actually going to do this. The Rowleys were offering me a firm salary for two years, but in saying yes, I was taking on an incredible amount of responsibility. I’d have to get to know and connect all of the complicated strands that comprised Janet’s personal, professional, and family life. I would have to honor her wish to tell her own story, but also maintain a journalist’s objectivity and to try to break into book publishing as a first-time writer.
Along with that, I would have a chance to become friends with two fascinating scientists, to learn more than I could have imagined about molecular biology, DNA research, and the life of the mind.
When I started telling people I was writing a biography, Janet’s name only raised more questions, i.e. “Who is she? What does she do? Why does her life warrant a biography?” Janet, I continue to tell people who ask, is an unsung hero of the women’s movement and of scientific, political, and cultural wars.
Now, however, the 44th President of the United States (and more recently the New York Times) is singing her praise—and telling everyone we all should get to know her better. I’m delighted to have a long head-start on that happy task.
WATCH A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH JANET ROWLEY
Book Proposal available
from Amanda Mecke, Literary Agent
amecke@earthlink.net
To be completely honest, when I accepted the Rowleys’ offer and became Janet Rowley’s biographer, the prospect of working from home excited me more than anything else. Goodbye, two-hour commutes at the mercy of public transportation. Little did I know, within the two years I spent on the project, the political climate in this country would turn a 180, I would become passionate about ideas I hadn’t given any thought to before, and Janet—who has battled very publicly for science during the past four decades—would finally earn some much deserved recognition.
In late July, Obama announced that he planned to award Janet this country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Of course this came as a massive honor, but I didn’t grasp the magnitude of it until I read the names of the other 15 recipients, among them Stephen Hawking, Desmond Tutu, Sandra Day O’Connor, Harvey Milk, and Sidney Poitier. Those names offered some key perspective because, you see, my primary source in writing this book has been Janet. And Janet is incredibly humble--and private. “I’ve been very lucky,” is the most she’ll say, crediting her achievements to her colleagues and supporters.
Yet, it was Janet alone who found the link between genetics and cancer, a discovery that has changed the way physicians and scientists approach cancer treatment and research.
Her discovery in 1972 led to a drug that today saves ninety percent of the people who take it—though it took thirty years for that drug to become a reality. Thirty years before the United States Food and Drug Administration nodded its go ahead to a targeted therapy. Thirty years before TIME magazine featured a pile of yellow pills imprinted with Gleevec on its cover and called the drug the “new ammunition” in the war on cancer.
Janet is clearly more than the sum of the people around her. When she began researching leukemia in 1962, she learned to maneuver in a man’s world; although she refuses to readily admit any gender discrimination. Through our conversations and through my conversations with Janet’s friends and colleagues, I’ve gained context for her modest interpretation of events.
She comes from a generation in which women belonged in the home; if they chose to play amongst men, they had to accept the ways of men. That was the way things worked in the professional world, just as when Janet applied for medical school at the University of Chicago, and a quota of three women per class delayed her entrance for nine months; she accepted the delay without question, and bided her time in other classes. When Janet began her career, she only worked part-time. She went into her laboratory two or three days a week because she craved a life outside of the confines of work and wanted to spend time with her sons. Janet made her first major discoveries at home, at her dining room table, and because of that she perhaps bypassed many of the direct biases she would have experienced had she gone into work daily. As she explained to me:
"I thought I had it made working three days a week. I could take care of my children, garden, weave, and go to museums. Anyone who was foolish enough to work full time was unfortunate. I was going to keep on with my wonderful life, but it didn't work out like that. Some success awakens in you that you want more success.”
Today Janet’s success is undeniable. Even one of the country’s most resolute conservatives, Leon Kass, respects her. In 2001, as chairman of former president George W. Bush’s Council on Bioethics, Kass phoned Janet and asked her to join the Council, which met quarterly through 2009 to discuss issues such as stem cell research and health care reform. “I’ve since learned that this is a woman who has such a sense of public spirit,” Kass said. “From the time she arrived and for as long as we stayed together, she was zealous in her efforts to make the moral case on the other side. She was there not just as a fellow citizen trying to do the public good, but to defend the cause of science in a world where—from her point of view—science was in danger from ignorance, to some extent ideology, certain religious opinions and so on.”
That public spirit led Obama to award Janet the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her spirit also inspired Janet’s husband, Donald, to call me one afternoon three years ago.
“Kate?” Donald’s deep voice boomed over my office phone. “We need to talk.” At the time, I was writing for the University of Chicago Medical Center’s magazine (with a readership closing in on thirty thousand). I’d just completed a profile of Donald, who had been at the university for more than sixty years. Despite the dean kicking him out of medical school, Donald eventually re-enrolled, graduated, and went on to create the gel electrodes that hospitals continue to use today by the billions for monitoring heart rates.
Donald had called me because he wanted to make a proposal. He wanted me to capture his wife’s life in the same way I’d captured his. He knew someone would write about Janet someday, and he wanted the story to be written with a real understanding of her life and her work.
Basically, Donald was offering to be my patron. He was asking me to quit my job and spend the next two years on this project. I could work from home and make my own schedule. Finding a publisher would be the best possible outcome, but if I didn’t, I would return the manuscript to the Rowleys for their personal archives. My family thought it was risky. My boss said that it was a “once-in-a-lifetime” chance, and urged me to say yes.
When I accepted the offer, I was sitting in the Rowleys’ solarium, watching birds peck at the feeders in the backyard and wondering how I was actually going to do this. The Rowleys were offering me a firm salary for two years, but in saying yes, I was taking on an incredible amount of responsibility. I’d have to get to know and connect all of the complicated strands that comprised Janet’s personal, professional, and family life. I would have to honor her wish to tell her own story, but also maintain a journalist’s objectivity and to try to break into book publishing as a first-time writer.
Along with that, I would have a chance to become friends with two fascinating scientists, to learn more than I could have imagined about molecular biology, DNA research, and the life of the mind.
When I started telling people I was writing a biography, Janet’s name only raised more questions, i.e. “Who is she? What does she do? Why does her life warrant a biography?” Janet, I continue to tell people who ask, is an unsung hero of the women’s movement and of scientific, political, and cultural wars.
Now, however, the 44th President of the United States (and more recently the New York Times) is singing her praise—and telling everyone we all should get to know her better. I’m delighted to have a long head-start on that happy task.
WATCH A VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH JANET ROWLEY
