Her Hidden Genius

Trigger warnings: terminal illness (cancer), sexism, extramarital affair

Rosalind Franklin is a scientist who helps discover the properties of DNA.

Doctor Rosalind Franklin is a scientist who travels to France to learn about x-ray crystallography. Her former research in the UK had been on the properties of coal. In France, she becomes an expert in crystallography and discovers a lot about the properties and unseen elements that make up matter. She also picks up the habit of destroying records of her exposure to radiation so she can continue researching instead of having to take time off until her levels are normal. She is a woman of science, and no one has proved that x-rays are harmful (yet).

After a few years in France, a bad relationship causes her to leave the camaraderie of the French labo to return to England. She begins working for a biophysics department at King's College London, which is one of the first interdisciplinary departments of its kind. Rosalind is shocked to learn on arrival that she will not be studying her specialty (inorganic matter), but was hired to help reveal the properties of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

Rosalind is miserable at King's because of the animosity of one coworker -- Wilkins. Wilkins undermines her at every opportunity because she is a woman, but also because she is a woman with better research materials and a greater understanding of the research than him. Wilkins thinks she is taking too long to publish her results, but Rosalind insists that she is simply confirming her results before jumping to conclusions. Rosalind is infuriated when he presents preliminary results -- her results -- at a small conference and sees him animatedly talking with Francis Crick.

Crick & Watson (the men who are widely attributed with the discovery of DNA's double-helix structure) make an appearance when Rosalind and Wilkins visit them at Cambridge. Rosalind is shocked to see that they've made a model (incorrectly) of DNA after only working on the substance for one week. Rosalind is afraid that Wilkins is sharing her research with these men who are supposed to be studying the structure of protein instead of DNA.

Maurice Wilkins singlehandedly makes Rosalind's experience at King's a nightmare; he belittles her at every turn for simply being female, although he may have been intimidated by her brilliance or could have had unrequited romantic feelings for her. She leaves the DNA research lab to study viruses at the Birkbeck.

This novel is told in three parts -- the first at Rosalind's labo in France, the second during Rosalind's time at King's College in post-WWII London, and the third after Rosalind leaves King's for the Birkbeck.

Rosalind's scientific curiosity and devotion to her research despite the consequences are admirable, and it's sad that many of the men around her achieved notoriety on her shoulders when she remains unknown outside of scientific circles.

Recommended for readers of historical women's fiction, women's history, and STEM biographies.

Historical note (spoilers ahead):

Wilkins, Watson, and Crick earned the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1962 after using Rosalind and her assistant Ray Gosling's data to propose the double helix structure. Her Birkbeck coworker Aaron Klug won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1982 after continuing Rosalind's work on viruses. Rosalind was never recognized by the Nobel Committee either during her life or posthumously, despite Watson's recommendation that she should've been recognized for chemistry with Maurice Wilkins for her contributions to DNA research.

Note: the above cover is a variant, but I preferred it to the novel's blue and yellow cover.

Marie Benedict is a lawyer known for writing historical fiction about important women whose world contributions are sometimes forgotten.

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Length: 304 pages

Release Date: January 25, 2022

I received an electronic galley copy of this title from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.