1. What
made you write this novel?
I love characters that are almost
but not quite human. My favorite Star Trek characters are always
ones like Spock, Data, and the Doctor from Voyager. Clones, to me, are about
as almost human as you can get. Some of my favorite science fiction
stories deal with clones. But there are so many good ones already out there I
didn’t feel like I had anything to add, and I never really set out to try.
But I was reading something a few
years ago that posed a straightforward and fascinating question: What would
it be like to meet your own clone? The article I was reading left it at
that, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I knew it might be interesting to
write a clone story that focused not on the clone, but on the human, who had been
cloned. I thought that presented a whole new set of ideas and issues within the
topic. It sort of turns the whole thing around when you look at it from that human
perspective. What would it feel like to see yourself replaced in your own life?
There is something so creepy and sad about that idea. Also, though, I saw
something hopeful. I think it brings up the possibility of making a change in
your life or seeing the opportunity for a second chance, which is always a good
thing to explore. Those are some ideas I tried to keep in mind as I was writing
The Mirror Man.
2. Medical thrillers are all the rage. Why, do you
think?
I think there is something
intrinsically threatening about so-called Big Pharma – especially right now. In
the midst of a global pandemic, the world is waiting for a viable vaccine to
fix it, but there’s this nagging doubt that maybe it’s being rushed. We have
government agencies relaxing rules on testing protocol, funding research with
budgets the size of planetary systems, and all these drug companies racing to
be the one that comes charging in on the white stallion to save the world. But
poll after poll in the news says the public won’t feel safe getting vaccinated
right off the bat, even if it means getting back to normal. And there are more
people in the world today that don’t trust mandated vaccines to begin with –
not even for the tried and tested ones for polio or mumps.
People don’t trust that these huge
companies truly have the public’s best interest at heart. I think that really
became more evident when pharmaceutical companies began advertising drugs on television
and pushing people to “ask your doctor or pharmacist if (insert drug here)
is right for you.” I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t want to suggest
a drug to my doctor as though it were a brand of cookie that looked good on TV.
I’d much rather my doctor had a more educated idea on what medicine I ought to
be taking.
So, I think medical thrillers are
big right now because people are pretty easily convinced that an industry that
seems motivated more by profit and less by altruistic science just might have
the capacity for evil. For a lot of people, that distrust is already there.
3. What are your thoughts about cloning?
I find the concept of cloning to be
fascinating. The thought of having a clone – someone who could say, clean the
bathrooms for me, make dinner, go to a meeting in my place – is sort of
tempting. But there are all these sinister elements about cloning, and a whole
lot of ethical questions, too, that are a lot more serious. What if we created clones
for harvesting body parts in the event that we got sick or injured? What if we
used them to fight our wars or for bomb disposal and other dangerous endeavors
in our place? Would the auto industry begin using clones instead of test
dummies for crash test data? Presumably, a clone would feel every bit as real
and human as the host it sprang from, but would it be? Would clones have the
same rights and privileges of personhood if they were mere copies? Would they
be entitled to such rights and privileges? And if they didn’t get them – what
then? Would they organize and rise up against us?
There is a lot to consider about
human cloning and I only touched briefly on these questions in The Mirror Man,
but I think we – as a society and as a species – ought to start thinking about
it.
4. How did you research this novel?
Because
the main focus of The Mirror Man is more the psychological changes of the
protagonist as he watches his clone, it isn’t a book that’s especially science
laden. That being said, the science (even though most is invented) had to be
believable and plausible and so, is based on real science.
For the cloning aspect in the story
I researched the way cloning is currently done in mammals – via cell transfer and
embryotic implantation. But I also needed to identify ways in which scientists
might grow a human clone quickly, so it would reach a full, adult maturation
rate in about 48 hours. I read a lot about Human Growth Hormone (HGH) in the
pituitary gland of our brains and its effect on how our bodies grow. The
research was intriguing and sent me down so many rabbit holes dealing with the
role this hormone plays in cell repair, muscle mass, weight gain, and even life
expectancy. The articles I saved and the notes I took might well come in handy
for a future novel.
I also did some research for Meld,
the invented drug in the story. I wanted to create a drug that – if two people
took it together – could offer a literal glimpse into someone else’s mind but
one that could also be used to transfer brain patterns and consciousness from
the main character into the clone. In the novel, the drug is used in a myriad
of ways – not only to copy a mind, but also as a promising medical tool and as
an illegal recreational drug with dire consequences. For Meld I researched the
areas of the human brain such a drug might act upon – especially our aptly
titled mirror neurons which are responsible for making us yawn when we see
someone else yawn. (If yours are especially active, you might have yawned at
the very thought of that. If so – sorry!)
5. Do you believe human cloning is possible?
As the lead scientist in The Mirror Man
likes to point out, “the science exists.”
Human cloning is absolutely
possible. We are already so adept at cloning animals that there are actual
companies out there whose entire business model is built on cloning our dogs
and cats. And people do that more often than you’d imagine. Did you know
Barbara Streisand has had something like five clones of her favorite
dog? It’s true. And we all know the story of Dolly, the sheep with the dubious
distinction of being the very first mammal to be successfully cloned in 1996.
From dogs and cats and sheep it isn’t a giant leap to cloning humans. Essentially,
the science is the same. What’s stopping us (thankfully) isn’t the feasibility,
but the ethical and moral dilemmas associated with human cloning.
While many countries have passed
laws that prohibit human cloning, the US currently has no such legislation
(although some states do). Congress has proposed many bills to that effect, but
none have been enacted into actual law. The reason for that is partly because
things like medical stem cell research overlap the science of cloning. But
there are reams of material written on the ethical implications of human
cloning from agencies including the World Health Organization, and there are
ongoing congressional discussions to agree at least on some level of regulation.
But at the moment, in the US, human cloning is both scientifically possible and
essentially legal. That’s just a tiny bit terrifying.
6. Talk about the meaning of identity in your book
It didn’t take me long to understand that what
I was really doing with The Mirror Man was writing a story about self-identity.
It’s a topic that finds its way into a lot of what I write and is strangely
compelling to me. My favorite line from David Bowie’s song “Changes” is this:
I turn myself to face me, but I never caught a
glimpse of how the others must see the faker
I find that idea fascinating. We all
have this idea of who we are, and how we come across to other people, but it’s
probably not the truth. The way we see ourselves is muddled with all these
filters and little lies. We are all, in a sense, just fakers. I wanted to
explore that concept, so I came up with a way to put a character in a situation
where he literally had to turn and face himself – to see himself exactly as
everyone else sees him -- from the outside. Cloning seemed an obvious choice
for a science fiction writer.
In the novel, my character, Jeremiah
is largely locked in this laboratory/apartment and made to watch his clone on a
TV monitor for four hours a day. Even though he’s typically seeing mundane
things – the clone interacting with his family and co-workers – the experience
is difficult and eye-opening for him. While he has to admit that his double is every
bit identical to him, he begins to despise who he’s watching. It makes him
question fundamental things about his own identity.
Meanwhile, we have this illegal
street use of a drug called Meld that allows people to see themselves through
someone else’s eyes and it leads to a rash of suicides. It’s another way of looking
at what the main character is going through, but the result is basically the
same: It isn’t easy to face the truth of who you are.
There are a lot of figurative and literal
mirrors in my novel. Jeremiah is often looking at his own reflection as he
grapples with questions about his life. He spends quite a bit of time creating
an avatar of himself for a video game. And, obviously, his clone is sort of the
ultimate reflection. But he never fully understands what he’s seeing until he’s
forced to face himself. And I had to bring him to that point in a very literal way.
Hopefully, the novel will leave readers asking some interesting questions about
their own identity.
The Mirror Man
Jane Gilmartin
On Sale Date: October 20, 2020
9780778309642, 0778309649
Hardcover
$27.99 USD, $34.99 CAD
Fiction / Science Fiction / Suspense
352 pages
About the Book:
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Charles
Scott glared down at him with a glint in his green eyes that felt like a
warning, and Jeremiah replayed in his head the man’s ambiguous threat during
their first meeting several weeks before.
“You now know as much about this project as anyone
else involved,” he’d said. “It wouldn’t do
to have too many people walking around with this kind of information. Our
investors have a tendency to get nervous.”
Although Scott had quickly followed that remark with
the matter of Jeremiah’s substantial compensation, there was no mistaking the
implication: the moment he’d been told about the cloning project Jeremiah was
already in. That first meeting hadn’t been an invitation so much as an
orientation, and the contract he’d later signed had been a formality, at best.
And the entire thing had done nothing but gain momentum from that moment on.
Dr.
Pike continued to affix the wires to Jeremiah’s head. Jeremiah focused on the
man’s gleaming black hair and the deep brown of his sure, professional hands,
and he struggled to remember the allure of the $10 million payout he’d get at the end
of the whole thing. That kind of money could fix a lot of problems. It would
change things. The prospect of that fortune had been enough to make him turn
away from principles he thought were unshakable. Every man has his price, he
supposed.
Somewhere
in the back of his mind he also acknowledged the real temptation of a
twelve-month sabbatical from his own life. It had seduced him every bit as much
as the money had. Maybe more. Between a job that had already begun to make him
question his own morals, and a marriage that felt increasingly more like a
lie, stress was eating him alive. And into his lap fell a chance to just walk
away from all of it—without consequence and without blame. A free pass. He
could simply walk away without anyone even knowing he was gone. There isn’t a
man alive, he told himself, who would have refused. Despite the ethical
question, despite that human cloning was illegal the world over, it would have
tempted anyone.
Dr. Pike
injected the clone with Meld and then turned wordlessly to Jeremiah with the
second syringe poised above his left shoulder.
Jeremiah
closed his eyes and rolled up his sleeve.
After the
initial stab of the needle, he felt nothing. Which is not to say he didn’t feel
anything; he literally felt nothing. Seconds after the injection, he became
aware of a total emptiness, like a towering black wave that threatened to sink
him into an immeasurable void. The experience was unlike anything he’d ever
known. He imagined an astronaut suddenly untethered from his ship, floating
helplessly into unending darkness. Without thinking, he immediately felt his
body recoil. His mind screamed against it.
I’m dying!
From
impossibly far away, he heard Dr. Pike say something about a heart rate and
felt the slight pressure of a hand on his shoulder. He couldn’t see anything
of the hospital room anymore. He was drowning in the blackness. His chest felt
suddenly constricted. He fought just to find his breath.
“This is
all perfectly normal, Mr. Adams. You have nothing to worry about. Concentrate
on the sound of my voice. Nod if you can hear me.”
With
considerable effort, Jeremiah managed what he hoped was a nod of his head. He
was suddenly gripped by the alarming certainty that if he couldn’t communicate
somehow, he’d be lost—swept away forever.
“Good.
Good. Listen to my voice. It will keep you grounded.” Pike still sounded far
away, but Jeremiah nodded again and struggled to focus. “What you are
experiencing is to be expected. Do you remember when you took the Meld with Dr.
Young? Do you remember the way you could feel her thoughts for the first few
minutes?”
He nodded.
It had been an unnerving thing to perceive her consciousness mixing with his
like that. Flashes from her mind—odd, alien things like the feel of a blister
on the back of her right heel, the familiar gleam in the eye of an old man he’d
never seen—had swirled into the very structure of his own mind and fought for a
place to settle. He had railed against that, too, and she had grounded him by
flashing a penlight in his face, making him focus on that while the Meld took
effect. Afterward, once he had sunk in, it had been easier.
“This is
no different than what you experienced then,” Pike said. “This time, though,
you are connected to an empty mind. There’s nothing there. But the more you
resist, the longer this will take. You need to relax, Mr. Adams. Give in to
it.”
Jeremiah
nodded again and then shook his head with as much grit as he could muster. How
does one give in to this? He didn’t think he could do it.
“Once your thoughts begin
transferring into the mind of the clone it will be easier for you,” Pike urged.
“Focus on a memory, as I suggested. Something vivid. It will help to fill that
void you’re experiencing now. It will give you something to hang on to.”
Without
the benefit of his full faculties, Jeremiah had little choice but to grab the
last thing he’d been thinking about—his initial conversation with Charles
Scott, the day all of this began.
He’d been
surprised when he’d received an invitation to lunch from ViMed’s head of
Engineering. The man was an icon in the science world, and although he’d quoted
him a hundred times for the company, Jeremiah had never actually met him. He’d
been intrigued enough to accept the invitation, especially when Scott had told
him it involved a “proposition that could make him a very wealthy man.”
Flashes of
that encounter and snatches of conversation now flitted through his mind like
so many fireflies. He fought to catch them.
“We’ve been watching you, Mr. Adams.”
“All we ask is one year of your life. Isn’t that
worth $10 million?”
“We can do this. The science exists. And with Meld,
the clone will even share your thought patterns… Your own mother won’t know the
difference.”
“This is sanctioned by powerful people—we have
millions in secret federal backing. There are billions more in eventual
funding… There’s no need to be so suspicious, Mr. Adams.”
From somewhere far away, Jeremiah heard Dr. Pike
repeating his name. He had been so engulfed in his efforts to hold on to the
memory that he’d almost forgotten where he was. As soon as he realized it, the
void loomed again in his mind.
“Mr.
Adams,” Pike said, “you’ve got to listen to me. The clone cannot pick up on any
memory of the experiment. What you’re thinking about is not going to help. You
need to think about something else, some memory that won’t be filtered. His
mind is still empty.”
Jeremiah
panicked. He couldn’t think. And now that he wasn’t focused on anything, the
blackness began to take over again, creeping closer and threatening to swallow
him. He fought for breath.
“Relax,
Mr. Adams,” Pike said. “Think about your job here at ViMed. Remember something
the clone can actually use. Something he’ll need to know.”
He felt a
dull jab at his shoulder.
“This
should help. I’ve given you a mild sedative. Take a few deep breaths.
Concentrate on your breathing.”
With
everything in him, Jeremiah tried to turn his mind away from the void that
seemed to be all around him. He inhaled deeply and tried to focus on the rise
of his own chest. Exhaled, and he felt his chest fall.
“Very
good, Mr. Adams. Very good. Pulse is returning to normal. Deep breaths. Now,
think about a typical day at work. Something ordinary and mundane.”
Inhale.
Exhale. After a moment, Jeremiah began to relax and, as the sedative took hold,
he found he could let his mind wander without the frantic thought that he’d
never get it back. An oddly comforting fog seemed to expand in front of him,
pushing the blackness away slightly, and Jeremiah retreated into it.
He began
to think about the morning of the Meld fiasco—the day the New Jersey housewife
had killed herself. The press had been circling. He’d arrived at his office
with a terse mandate from his superiors to “get these fuckers off our back”
and no idea how to accomplish that. It hadn’t been lost on him that not a
single soul seemed bothered enough to stop and feel sorry about it, and he’d
taken a quick moment behind his office door to offer silent condolences. It
wasn’t thirty seconds before someone had come knocking, pushing him to get
something done.
Weeks
before, he’d heard talk of Meld being used to detect brain activity in a
sixteen-year-old football player who had been comatose for nearly six months.
Time to cash in. He tracked down the doctor somewhere in Delaware and the man
started gushing about Meld, calling it “magical,” “a godsend” and “the most
important medical advance of a generation.”
“After so
many weeks,” he said, “the parents were hopeless.”
Meld was a
last resort before pulling the plug, and it gave them the first clear signs of
neural activity in the boy.
“Not only
was he aware and awake in there, but he was cognizant of everything that was
going on around him—including the fact that his parents were losing hope. He
even heard them talking about funeral arrangements at one point. The kid was
scared, terrified. He was begging for his life in there. That’s what I saw when
I took the Meld with him. Meld absolutely saved his life. There is no doubt in
my mind.”
Jeremiah
had almost smiled. It was pure gold. A few hours later, the story was in the
hands of every major news outlet, and that doctor was spending his fifteen
minutes of fame touting Meld as “a medical miracle.”
Jeremiah
focused on that now. Maybe Meld did have some silver lining, after all, he
thought. Maybe it was miraculous.
Jane Gilmartin has been a news
reporter and editor for several small-town weekly papers and enjoyed a brief
but exciting stint as a rock music journalist. A bucket list review just before
she turned 50 set her on the path to fiction writing. Also checked off that
list: an accidental singing career, attending a Star Trek convention, and
getting a hug from David Bowie. She lives in her hometown of Hingham,
Massachusetts.
Social Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JANEGILMARTIN3
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