Starch-free protest

Green protesters have more rings in their trunk than you might think. Twenty years before Brother Mendel published the first sprouts of genetic research about the peas in his garden, Nathaniel Hawthorne was already warning about the dangers of interfering with nature. In 1844, the Concord writer didn't know anything about genes, or cloned sheep, or bug-zapping corn, but he published a weird short story called "Rappaccini's Daughter." Besides giving birth to the mouthwash industry (Rappaccini's daughter can kill people with her breath), the story stands as one of the earliest American protests against meddling with an organism's traits.

Now, Monsanto and other biochemical companies are concentrating hard on genetically modified food, while spraying herbicide on mandatory labeling laws to keep consumers worry-free. Hippies screaming about "Frankenspuds" are easy to weed, but a new literary threat may be harder for the industry to squash.

Hog farmers are getting skinned alive by Annie Proulx's "That Old Ace in the Hole." And now Ruth Ozeki takes a whack at genetic engineers with a wonderful new novel called "All Over Creation." Along with Barbara Kingsolver, these politically oriented authors form a persuasive triumvirate. Their immense popularity among sophisticated women readers and book clubs means that the consumers who are most valuable to food manufacturers are being fed a diet high in anti-industry sentiments.

While Proulx's latest novel squeals like propaganda, Ozeki balances intimate and global concerns perfectly. She tells the story of a frustratingly irresponsible woman named Yumi who ran away from her parents when she was 14. A history teacher had seduced her and then pressured her into having an abortion. When her father, a fundamentalist potato farmer, discovered what she had done, it shattered their relationship and sent her flying away.

Now, 25 years later, hearing that her parents are near death, she's returned for the first time to Liberty Falls, Idaho. Her Japanese mother has descended into the fog of Alzheimer's, and her proud father is struggling through the ravages of cancer and heart failure.

They're desperate for help, but so was Yumi once, and coming home scratches open old resentments on both sides. "People said I was the apple of Lloyd's eye, the pride of his heart," Yumi remembers, "until I went rotten." Returning to this conservative farm community from Hawaii with three children from three different fathers, she feels that old sense of condemnation immediately: "I was a random fruit in a field of genetically identical potatoes."

Page: 1 | 2