Cover image courtesy W.W. Norton & Company; Photo by Jen Siska
After eight books (seven for adults, one for kids), Mary Roach was running out of biological processes. She already traveled down the alimentary canal for Gulp; she observed (many) decomposing bodies for Stiff; and she spent time up close with the private parts of pigs, porcupines, and people for Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.
Then Roach landed on the science of regenerative medicine, which includes everything from grafting skin tissue on burn victims to bioprinting heart muscle cells. The challenges involved in the work are legion. (Perhaps, she says, the title should have been “irreplaceable you.”) But luckily for Roach, there was plenty to see and explain through scenes. The result: Roach’s latest book, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy.
Roach’s writing style is immediately recognizable. She’s not afraid to get a little gross and very silly in service of readers, especially through her use of footnotes to explore research rabbit holes. While David Foster Wallace fans continue to celebrate him as the champion of non-academic footnotes, Roach makes a play for that title. In Replaceable You, she serves up footnotes detailing everything from self-amputation to why you shouldn’t intubate a dolphin through its blowhole.
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But Roach is also devoted to making her work accessible. She helps readers understand science by taking them along on the reporting process and focusing on subjects that are, basically, observable.
“A lot of science today is protein receptors, genomes. It’s not bodies on slabs or something where you can walk into the lab or go out into the field and see people at work. It’s harder to bring it to life. It’s not obvious fodder for one of my books,” she says.
Depth Perception spoke with Roach about dissecting the science of biology, why scientists shouldn’t shy away from explaining their work, and her love of footnotes. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. —Jenna Schnuer
You don’t have a degree in biology but it’s been at the center of so many of your books. What is it about the biological sciences that captures you?
When I started out as a writer, I loved to travel and the more foreign the place the better. [Then] I ended up writing about the human body, and I kind of realized that it is an exotic land in and of itself, and it’s a place to explore and it’s bizarre — the same kind of thing that drew me to Antarctica. I really didn’t pay attention in biology in high school so it was all new to me. The body is really amazing and strange.
How much did you know about regenerative medicine before you started?
I put off the more technical chapters for some time — the bioprinting, the stem cell chapter, the xenotransplantation — because I don’t have a background in biology or genetics or anything that would actually prove helpful. I think I had a sort of funkier view of things. But it turns out that these topics are incredibly interesting. I needed to take the plunge and actually start to learn about it.
You’re pretty much the tour guide for readers who are new to a topic. How do you approach interviews with experts when you’re the newbie?
I go in apologetically. I say, “I’m going to spend the next few hours asking really basic questions that will concern you.” I’m just very transparent about my ignorance up front. If they are chagrined at the kind of questions I’m asking, they hide it well.
If somebody agrees to be part of a book like [one of] mine, they want somebody to communicate what they do to a wider audience. I think there is that appreciation for somebody coming in and really not knowing squat, but figuring it out and conveying it to other people who don’t know squat.
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Was Replaceable You more challenging to report than your other books? It’s more about lab work and surgery than the impact of outside forces on the body, like Stiff or Grunt.
This book was a little challenging in that I like to report on the scene and go places to have conversations with people, settings and scenes and things. Biotech companies — I’m making a fairly generalized statement here — they’re not thrilled to have people visit.
There was a lot of me calling companies, say, for the xenotransplantation [using non-human cells] chapter. Of course, I started with eGenesis and United Therapeutics, because they’re the players here in the U.S. They were initially receptive, and they’re like, “Oh, let’s have a Zoom.” And I said, “Great.” And then they got back to me and said, “Yeah, this isn’t going to work.” Or they just didn’t get back to me.
There’s also been some changes in terms of privacy with hospitals and patients, which contributed to it being a little more challenging to be in an operating room, or to talk to a patient, or to talk to a researcher about his work that involves patients.
Movies and books plant a Frankenstein vision of this science in people’s heads. What’s the reality of replacement parts?
My agent was like, “Don’t you want the word bionic in your subtitle?” No, no. There are no cyborgs in here.
The thing that comes to mind for a lot of people is the articulating artificial hand that moves like a real hand. I went to the annual conference of the Amputee Coalition and I didn’t see anybody with that articulating hand. First of all, those artificial hands and arms, they’re heavy, they’re expensive, they require a battery, [and] they’re not waterproof. You’re sort of toggling through different grips. It’s mentally exhausting. The woman I was walking around with, there’s a booth and there’s a picture of this metal hand holding a raspberry. And she goes, “Are you going to spend 30 seconds picking that up? No, you’re going to reach over with your other hand.” The reality is a long way off from what people see in the movies. This is not a book about cyber parts. It’s not sci-fi. It’s human.
“There are no cyborgs in here…. The reality is a long way off from what people see in the movies. This is not a book about cyber parts. It’s not sci-fi. It’s human.” —Mary Roach
Do you think some researchers harm their cause by not talking about their science?
Yes. The last chapter about tissue to tissue recovery, that was not easy to get access. And my argument was, when you act like you have something to hide, people think you have something to hide.
If you leave it to people’s imaginations, they’re going to imagine something far worse than what the reality is. That was true for the stuff that I did for Stiff as well. I like to think [my work] demystifies it and takes it out of the realm of horror films.
