Before I knew anything about science, it loomed as mystery and beauty, a view that never completely left me during my almost 50-year career at the National Institutes of Health.
Drawn to the abstraction of science by the romantic fantasies of my father, world-renowned cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, I first envisioned it as whales fighting with giant squids, or jellyfish bursting from the deep like translucent, living pieces of jewelry.
“Where do eels go to die?” my father wondered, envisioning an ocean burial ground.
“What about the speed of dark?” he asked, when I informed him on a semester break from college that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.
I pursued a career in science in part to enter my own realm; to step out from the shadow of my famous father and to meet the irrefutable expectation of excellence set forth by my mother, a high-achieving heiress to the Rothschild fortune and a vast collection of art.
I wondered if it was possible to become a self-made man like my father, when my mother’s money meant I was “made” from birth. And I wondered if I would be able to find the transcendence and magic he found in music, studying the eyes of invertebrates.
Straying from the well-trodden scientific career path to examine the eyes of jellyfish and other little-studied species, I learned that science, like music, had its poetic aspects, but it also required meticulous discipline. There were no shortcuts.
I also learned that widely held beliefs about the nature of things could be refuted as new evidence floats into our field of vision under the lens of a microscope. My study of crystallins – proteins from the eye lens – revealed there are paradoxes in nature, as in life. One, “gene sharing,” covered in the memoir, negates our deep-seated notion that being highly specialized for one function is at odds with also being equally specialized for a completely different function, emerges from my book, Gene Sharing and Evolution (Harvard University Press, 2007).
In The Speed of Dark, I share that notion by example: we can be many things at once. That science and art are two sides to one coin, and that science and writing are complementary.
Keeping our eyes open to paradoxes and possibilities, we can ask seemingly absurd questions that may someday have answers, such as: “What about the speed of dark?”
Published by Adelaide Books. Hardback release in December 2018.
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- Skillfully and elegantly composed…honest, insightful and poignant
Jeffrey Solow, cello virtuoso and past president of the American String Teachers Association “Retired after a 50-year career as a molecular biologist heading his own laboratory at the US National Institutes of Health, Joram Piatigorsky has now embarked on a second career as a writer. As one would expect, he offers an intimate view of Piatigorsky ...
- An exquisitely crafted, moving portrait of a man’s exhilarating journey to success…
The Prairie Books Review October 24, 2019 Piatigorsky, the world-renowned molecular biologist and eye researcher and founder of the Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Biology at the National Eye Institute, recounts his extraordinary journey as he discovers his own route to success in this emotionally raw, poignant, and richly crafted memoir. Born into a highly privileged family ...
- The clear and elegant prose on the theme of collecting reveals a … self-understanding that is rare
Michael Hall, PhD, Curator of Ceramics, the Capelain Collection, and Curator of the Rothschild family collections, Exbury Estate, Hampshire, Great Britain “The psychology of collecting is a difficult subject for any author, but for one who tries to understand the problems of inheriting a collection, watching collections being formed and creating a collection of one’s own, ...
- The Speed of Dark explores magical connection between science and art
Sel Kardan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Colburn School of Performing Arts, Los Angeles “Joram’s notion of science as art is the connective tissue in this memoir. I have witnessed over the years the significant ties between music, science, medicine, and the visual arts. There is a magical connection between the two worlds and this lovely ...
- “a meditation on art, wonder, and creativity”
Barbara Esstman, Author, Editor, Instructor, The Writer’s Center “The son of a Rothschild heiress and a world-class cellist, Joram Piatigorsky grew up in a rarified atmosphere of privilege, talent, and love. Not content with being known by his parents’ accomplishments, he established his own reputation as a respected NIH scientist and a foremost collector of Inuit ...
- The Speed of Dark is a deep and sweeping exploration of the relationship between science and art
James Mathews, The Writer’s Center Board of Directors, Author The Speed of Dark is a deep and sweeping exploration of the relationship between science and art, told through the eyes of a man who experienced the mystery of both. Piatigorsky represents that rare writer who can weave a compelling narrative that combines the intrinsically fascinating but often ...
- Piatigorsky’s unique story will receive a wide audience
Hamid Shams, BBP Films Producer and Cinematographer “This is an engaging personal narrative of how Joram Piatigorsky emerged from his illustrious family to become a highly distinguished, award-winning American scientist, an art collector and recently, a writer and novelist. Piatigorsky’s journey includes his parents’ narrow escape from Hitler to the rural Adirondack Mountains where Piatigorsky was ...
- Piatigorsky shows us that science, art and imaginative writing are all complementary ways of perceiving the world
Alan N. Schechter, M.D., Laboratory Chief, Senior Scientist and Historical Consultant, National Institutes of Health “The few scientists who turn to writing fiction late in their career, as did Carl Djerassi and E.O. Wilson, clearly wish to convey the personal components of a career in science along with the more technical aspects, and often also write ...
- “The Speed of Dark” is an insightful and inspirational autobiography
Joseph Horwitz, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology/Biophysics Jules Stein Eye Institute, University of California, Los Angeles “The Speed of Dark is an insightful and inspirational autobiography which vividly captures moments from the author’s life which impacted and enabled him to evolve and flourish into his own amongst his artistic family. Born into a family of great talent and fame, the bar was set very high for the author ...
- Dr. Piatigorsky’s memoir is sure to engage the broad interest of readers
Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, Independent Curator, Inuit Art “An eminent scientist and well-respected art collector, Dr. Joram Piatigorsky’s memoir is an inspiring reflection on the creative passion that infuses a life devoted to scientific experimentation and a profound appreciation of the arts. He contrasts ancestral family traditions with his own life journey, discovering unexpected similarities and differences ...