The Genius Factory: Unravelling the Mystery of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank

by David Plotz

In 1980 an eccentric American millionaire launched a 'Nobel Prize sperm bank', intended to create a new generation of superkids. Stocked with the seed of gifted scientists, inventors, businessmen and thinkers, including several Nobel laureates, the 'genius factory' produced more than 200 children before it quietly closed its doors in 1999. What happened to them? Were they the brilliant progeny its founder expected? In this stunning, eye-opening and hugely entertaining book, David Plotz tracks down many of the donors, children and mothers involved, and sheds new light on the fascinating battle between nature and nurture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, History, Sociology, Audiobook, Biology, Genetics

Paperback

First published June 7, 2005

About the author

Plotz, an American journalist, has been a writer with Slate since its inception and was designated as the online magazine's editor in June 2008.

He is the author of "The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank" (2005) and "Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned when I Read Every Single Word of the Bible" (2009).

Reviews

[Mara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dutch optician/astronomer/naturalist, Nicolaas Hartsoeker's Essai de Dioptrique (1694) contains one of my favorite illustrations in the history of science (sorry Vesalius, De Humani Corporis Fabrica might have to take a back seat for once). What could possibly oust the masterful engravings of volumes of infinitely greater consequence? The homunculus . For those of you who don't parlez français, you needn't fear- the picture pretty much says it all.



Yes, Hartsoeker peered through the microscope and, seeing those squiggly little suckers below the lens, helped bring unto the world the panspermist theory of preformationism featuring tons of tiny, fully-formed humans ready to burst forth in every wad of *cough* semen.

Though Hartsoeker's vision had been cast aside long before the Repository for Germinal Choice (aka the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank) was conceived, the "spirit" of it (a little tiny sperm-person spirit) was (is?) alive and well when, in 1980, the bank was founded by Robert Klark Graham (seen below admiring a sample with such reverence). Sure we've fancied up the science a bit- tossed in some friar's pea plant and a helix or two, but Graham and co. churned up a consumer public who very much believed that the bits and pieces of a great human could be locked inside someone's "little swimmers."



The Bank's Beginnings and the Shock Factor
In all likelihood, you aren't familiar with Graham himself (though you have him to thank for shatterproof eyeglass lenses). However, you might have heard and most definitely have reaped the technological rewards of physicist, inventor, Nobel laureate and completely racist a**hole, William Shockley .



Yes, the transistor is a pretty big deal. and Shockley was one of the forefathers of Silicon Valley. He was one of the Repository's biggest champions and was certainly its biggest liability. Without getting into the nuances of scientific (mis)understanding of genetics at the time, let's just say that Shockley was the vocal proponent of every aspect of eugenics that makes people squirm. In a very Fred Phelps-esque way, Shockley basked in every bit of attention that came his way. When students were protesting outside his Stanford office and their megaphones broke, Shockley came out and fixed them before retreating to his den.

Genius Babies
Bad PR did not stop demand for the sperm of brilliance. Graham and co. (which consisted of a couple other oddball characters) couldn't court donors fast enough. And, to clarify, it was all about "courting" the donors. I'm going to skip the parts about just how far from the "Nobel Laureate" ideal the Repository had to stray, but nevertheless they were always looking for "good seed."Graham would literally take guys out to dinner, tell them about his project, then try to get them to go back to his hotel with him to "produce a sample" on the spot.



Author David Plotz' ongoing journey ( "An Experiment in Long-Form Cyberjournalism" with the help of his employer, Slate) is a good chunk of the book. Personally, I didn't find the "genius babies" (all the children of married - or now divorced, white women) and donors uncovered to be all that interesting, but it's all in there. So, you know, read the book.

The Growth of the Sperm Sector
Though the Repository for Germinal choice did not, itself, produce all that many children, it did reveal a huge market for not just donated sperm, but information and choice about the donors (Sperm Banks are unlikely to make the walk-by donor ATM switch anytime soon). Is this a slippery slope towards Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? Probably not. However, the "industry" has embraced the inherent weirdness of it all with fervor.



Plotz, ever the good reporter, goes in deep- finding the process of becoming a donor to be a matter of intense vetting, and lots of kitsch (e.g. sperm mouse pads, and references to masterbatoriums). While the ATM might be a pipe dream, the delivery of spooge by sperm bike is not! (Lucky denizens of Copenhagen and Seattle can see them rolling down the streets already- more on that here).



How was the book?
It was fine. I'm glad I didn't pay for it (libraries are pretty awesome), and would likely have found Plotz' series of Slate articles sufficient to sate my curiosity (the "Seed" series link appears to be no more, but you can get started with "The 'Genius Babies,' and How They Grew").

[Gwern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moved to gwern.net.

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first it doesn't seem like such a bad idea, trying to ensure a smarter populace. Then words like "racism" and "eugenics" raise their ugly heads. People become specimens, and a whole lot of crazies begin to emerge from the woodwork.

In 1980, Robert K. Graham, a multi-millionaire who made his fortune inventing shatterproof plastic eyeglass lenses, dreamed of a race of super geniuses; the sperm of Nobel prize winners + the eggs of Mensa women = an improved human race. And voila, the Repository for Germinal Choice was born. Highly controversial from the get-go, the facility closed in 1999 after gracing the world with 215 "genius" babies.

From the start, the center had trouble attracting donors. Graham, an unabashed conservative and fan of "big bidness" supplemented his supply with sperm from business men, scientists, college professors, and medical students - basically the same juice that's up for grabs at run-of-the-mill sperm banks.

By now you're probably brimming with questions like:

*** Did they give the brainy donors centerfolds of Margaret Mead and Marie Curie to get them in the mood?
*** Graham claims there was no "inspirational literature", though many donors produced their samples at home and called for pick-up.

*** What about the kids? Are they super smart?
*** The answer to that one is NO. Like the children of Lake Wobegon, they are above average, but most were raised by intelligent, single mothers who pushed them to achieve. In the contest of nature vs nurture, the hyper-involved moms nudged the needle into the latter category.

*** What kind of a man donates sperm?
*** The range varies from men who genuinely want to help a stranger conceive to creeps you wouldn't want sitting next to you on a bar stool.

Which brings me to "Michael", one of the donors who is also the son of a Nobel prize-winning scientist.

Michael, I learned, was a man of little renown. It was not clear whether he had a job.
He referred to sperm donation, unironically, as "work." He was the only person I have ever heard of - outside the porn industry - who thought of masturbation as labor. ...he called it "work" because it was the most productive activity in his life.
As we talked, he ticked off his employers on his fingers.
"Oh, there were probably half a dozen doctors I worked for, plus two or three sperm banks." All in all, he had spent fifteen years masturbating. It had, he admitted, been exhausting.

Michael was now fifty, and sperm bank age restrictions prevented him from donating anymore.

...but Michael's eagerness to reproduce had not faded with age.
He wanted to give away the samples himself.
He was hoping to find a woman who would let him stay in touch with the child. Not that he intended to financially support the kid or be a father - he just wanted to check in when it was convenient.

When asked why he had spent the better part of his life donating sperm, Michael began to channel Charlie Sheen:

"...this is what evolutionary biology is all about. Winning is passing on your genes, and losing is failing to do so.
And I wanted to win!" He spoke this last sentence with a smug grin. It was just about the creepiest thing I have ever heard anyone say.

There you have it, folks. AND, there are at least 50 lil' offspring running around sportin' this guy's genes. *shudder*

The good news is that not every donor was like this jerk. We also meet "Roger" who is curious about his children, yet does not wish to interfere in their lives. He speaks eloquently about fathering children he has never seen:

"Fathering children anonymously is somewhat akin to producing paintings that to you are beautiful and priceless, but doing this with the understanding that when they are finished they must be given away and likely never seen again."

Plotz does an excellent job covering this unusual subject matter. His conversational tone keeps things light, and his sense of humor cracked me up several times - a photo of some sperm captioned, "Who's your daddy?", his habit of referring to reproductive opportunists as "The Inseminators", and this quote by a sperm bank employee, "He had so much sperm, and it was so active."

And oh yeah, I learned plenty, including things I didn't really want to know such as the possibility of donor's children committing "accidental incest." Stuff like that...

This book was surprising, outrageous, and occasionally quite touching. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in science, biology, or genetics. Or anyone who was once a baby.

[LeeLee Lulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spoiler alert: not a single baby was born from a Nobel Prize winner thanks to this bank.

The bank, which started as a very thinly-veiled eugenics project, only used white sperm to inseminate heterosexual, married white women. The book goes into the history of eugenics, the weird people who made the bank a reality, and the stark contrast between the initial plans and the disappointing reality.

The author met a lot of the donors as well as the "genius babies," their mothers, and their families. In some cases, he helped reunite the donors and their offspring, in a mix of charming and anticlimactic results.

This sperm bank, though an innovator in its time, was a total Icarus project. This was a really interesting book about a little B-side of history. It's a good read with the inevitable "it's not about your genes, but the choices you make" message.

[Maayan K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up from my gentleman-friend's house out of sheer boredom (we have very different taste in books), because I recognized David Plotz, the author, as one of the hosts of the Slate Political Gabfest, a podcast that I favour.

I'm honestly not sure why I read the whole thing - this is usually a topic I would devote a piece of journalism to perhaps but not a whole book. In fact, it did start as a series of articles by Plotz on Slate (he later went on to be the editor of the magazine).

Learning about the history of eugenics in America and the birth of the modern sperm bank industry through the lens of the so called "nobel sperm bank" was pretty interesting. The details of the various people that ran the bank and donated to it was a bit tedious at times, but what actually kept me going were the stories of the children, moms, and donors that end up connecting with each other through Plotz. These stories were touching, and the subjects are treated both critically and compassionately by the author.

The conclusion is basically no, the nobel sperm bank didn't produce a crop of geniuses. Moreover, the women that used it weren't interested in that at all - yes, some of them wanted smart kids, but most of them wanted well-rounded, healthy, and athletic ones too. Most of all they just wanted information about the donors, which the nobel sperm bank provided much more of than other options in 1980. What started as a Malthusian eugenics project ended up simply creating a model for the type of customer-focused sperm "shopping" experience we all take for granted today. There are several more layers of irony: that the three nobel prize winners who donated ended up never producing a child. That producing brilliant scientific minds wasn't really the priority of the bank's customers. That the most prolific donors weren't particularly brilliant or admirable people - merely a special brand of narcissist obsessed with spreading their seed. That the kids ended up more similar to their moms than anyone else.

The book is exhaustively reported and punchily written. Recommended, but only if you're curious about the intersection of politics, science and fertility.

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Robert Graham wanted to clean the gene pool. What better way than to enlist attractive and athletic Nobel Prize winning scientists, mathematicians and physicists in sperm donation? Insemination was a newfangled idea. The church denounced it, the public didn't want to talk about it, but women came from everywhere. Although restricted to women who were married, the sperm bank's existence resulted in 215 healthy babies, each one expected to change the world. But the science experiment failed. Within a few years, Dr. Graham's sperm bank closed and with it, the records of every child born with its help. David Plotz found out why.

What I found most interesting was that, in the end, the genius DNA didn't matter as much as Dr. Graham had hoped. No Nobel Prize babies were born. Brilliant kids maybe, but once children found out they were spawned from successful men, it was more a burden than an advantage. So much pressure to be successful themselves often resulted in lackadaisal attitudes and lives, spurning their purported genius DNA. It was relationships that meant the most and the the parents attention to each child that shaped their personalities, ambitions, successes and talents. It just goes to show that everyday Einsteins cannot be made; if we all just paid a little more attention to each other we could all turn out better adjusted and perhaps a bit brighter.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is essential to read the non-fiction, (stranger-than-fiction) 'The Genius Factory: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank' before reading 'My Uncle Oswald' by Roald Dahl. 'My Uncle Oswald' is not a children's book, definitely not. It is an hilarious dark satire, which Dahl wrote inspired by the enterprise in America in the 1970s and '80s of the genius sperm bank which lasted about ten years.
It is imperative to read The Genius Factory first, to appreciate the context in which Roald Dahl wrote My Uncle Oswald, a work of sheer brilliance. This novel alone is testament to Dahl being one of the 20th century's great writers, considering the events which inspired it.
Reading My Uncle Oswald in 2018 without the understanding of the context could give a misreading of the novel.
The Genius Factory is a great work of investigative journalism.

[Sarah Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part history of eugenics, part history of fertility treatment, and a heaping mystery/catfish story to uncover how this "Nobel Prize Sperm Bank" came to be and what happened to the promise of genius children. People had told me this book was funny, which it was in places, so I was surprised how wrapped up I got in the plot. Eugenics in the 1980s? Sperm banks before federal regulations? Yikes!

And then there is the philosophical, human stories that are really the base of the book. How do our genes determine who we are? What makes for family? What is a life well lived?

Overall, a quick fascinating read, even if some of the early 2000s references to CD players and old search engines give it a coating of dust.

[Peter]

The story of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, created by a rich entrepreneur who thought that the human genome was being forever compromised because the less intelligent were still allowed to breed. Goes beyond that initial wackiness, however, to explore the children resulting from the sperm bank, what they had become as teenagers, and how they felt upon meeting their biological fathers. Brings up all kinds of complex ethical conundrums surrounding sperm donation and the children brought into this world because of it.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Plotz's book covers a lot of ground over it's brief span. The story of a man who wanted to create a sperm bank using only Nobel prize winning men and and Mensa-level women transitions into the history of eugenics in America, the interference of one of Silicon Valley's most influential (and wildly racist) men, and personal stories of so-called "test tube babies" looking to meet their donors. It sounds disjointed, but thanks to Plotz's clean, funny, self-effacing prose, it all hangs together, and becomes a surprisingly moving exploration into the makings of a family.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This looks like a popular science book, or another instalment in the endless nature/nurture debate. But in fact it's a very moving story of children plentiful and their parents and vice versa. What actually struck me the most is that intelligence doesn't make you happy-unless it is of the emotional kind

[MikeFromQueens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of interesting in that I was new to this subject. Probably not the best way to learn about an actual "nature versus nurture" research project, though that wasn't the purpose of the sperm bank, but it fed some of my suspicions. I found it interesting in a weird kind-of way.

[Jason Fernandes · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Plotz says in his book The Genius Factory – Unravelling the Mysteries of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank that it was not uncommon for people to respond to the subject of his book with the assumption that it was a novel. It is not. The 'Nobel Prize Sperm Bank' was real. In fact it only closed operations in 1999.

To be fair, we should make clear from the beginning that it was the media that dubbed the enterprise 'The Nobel Prize Sperm Bank'. It's official name was 'Repository for Germinal Choice'. Although it's founder, Robert Graham, was no doubt pleased with the name conferred upon it. He claimed to include at least three Nobel laureates amongst it's donors. In reality, it's donors were much more varied. This was partly due to pragmatic reasons - Nobel laureates are an awfully small group to stock a sperm bank with, and they are mostly older men whose sperm quality may be less than adequate. They also represent a very limited racial mix (especially at that time).

It may be more correct to describe the aspirations of the endeavour as a high-achiever sperm bank. Donations came, not just from those with high intelligence, but those who were successful entrepreneurs for instance. This was not always the case. One prolific donor (not just to the ‘Nobel’ bank but to several) does not seem to have had much to recommend him other than the fact that his father was a Nobel laureate! Another seems to have greatly exaggerated his intelligence and accomplishments, yet also fathered a number of children through multiple sperm banks.

As time went on, and suitable donors became hard to come by, the standards the facility set for it's donors fell dramatically. Whatever the 'Nobel Prize Sperm Bank' sought to achieve, it seems to have lacked the organisation and competence to pursue it.

If the very idea of a Nobel Prize sperm bank sounds elitist, and well, a little fascist, the author has news for you. Elitism is inescapable in the reproduction industry. Every bank practices it to some extent, largely in response to their customers, and the ‘Repository for Germinal Choice’ was very influential in the development of the industry. The demand is great, about 30,000 donor babies are born in the US each year, and customers want good options to choose from. Depending on their priorities, that may mean high intelligence, a clean medical history, career success, etc. If you are under 5'9" you are unlikely to be chosen as a donor (at least in America). You may also need a family history largely clear of heritable illness. While not necessarily essential, they will also prefer you to have at least begun post-graduate study. The elitism is an inherent and inescapable part of the nature of the industry. One can only imagine the bar continuing to be raised.

While we should not confuse the reproduction industry with a eugenics program, one cannot escape the fact that the effects of competition and consumer choice mean that selection is inevitably based on a perception of preferred stock. It is problematic to criticise such choices when, even with natural reproduction, we all have criteria for characteristics of the ideal mate and mother/father of our children. Both natural and artificial insemination is not random but is selected with a perception, rational or otherwise, of desired characteristics.

Mention eugenics and most people immediately think of Nazi Germany. It pays to recall that such ideas at the time were not only present in other countries but often had considerable support. One hopes that our distaste for such ideas today is owing to the lesson of history and our (relatively) more enlightened age. Although one can't help but suspect that much of our abhorrence is due to a biased interpretation - painting everything associated with Nazism with the same broad brush. What I was unaware of, until reading this book, was that such 20th century movements had their origins in America of the late 19th century. It was the largely white-protestant population's response to their concerns over freed slaves and increased immigration, particularly of Jews and Catholics, from Europe. Combined with neo-Darwinism, such concerns became manifest in eugenic ideas to preserve a racial heritage. Influential books were written. The author of one received a fan letter from Hitler who called the book his “bible”!

Plotz is a journalist, not a doctor, scientist, economist or moralist and is more concerned with the ‘human’ story

The basic concept of breeding outstanding individuals though is as old as civilisation. Plotz's telling of the history of eugenic ideas, artificial insemination, donor insemination and the reproduction industry is one of the more interesting parts of the book. I especially enjoyed the bizarre story of what is believed to be the first donor-provided artificial insemination.

However I wanted more. I wanted to know more about the scientific validity (or otherwise) of such ideas. At one point Plotz mentions that if we were to institute a policy of sterilising people with ‘undesirable’ characteristics, it would still take “thousands of generations of mass sterilisation to significantly reduce the incidence of genetic disease”. Such facts are terrible interesting but are largely absent in this book. This leaves the reader in no better possession of facts to hold a view of their own.

There is also little discussion about any facts as to the heritability of intelligence, (or other desired qualities) which you would think would be central to the topic at hand. I also would have liked more discussion on the logical strengths and failings of the views of those who support such a project as the ‘Noble Prize Sperm Bank'. Plotz does highlight one serious flaw in one common argument - if it is true that the world is increasingly populated by 'slackers', living and out-breeding in a comfort provided by the work of scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs, then surely an effort to increase the portion of scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs, will only increase the effect. Again such arguments are terribly interesting to the uninitiated reader but are not explored in any depth.

Plotz does give more space to some of the ethical and moral dilemmas of the industry, particularly concerning children's rights to know the identity of their genetic fathers. Again, I would have liked to hear about more concerns and in more depth.

Plotz is a journalist, not a doctor, scientist, economist or moralist and my disappointments above are probably a reflection of this. One could also argue that such areas may be beyond the scope of this particular book and could only be covered briefly. Plotz is more concerned with telling the 'human story' - the story of the individuals involved - the bank's creator Robert Graham, William Shockley – the only Nobel laureate to confirm his donation – and the few donors and children he was able to track down.

(I am eagerly looking forward to reading the highly-praised book; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, which I hope does not suffer such shortcomings)

The influence of the ‘Nobel Prize Sperm Bank’ is felt throughout the industry

Telling the 'human story' in parallel with the historical aspect also creates a dichotomy within the book. For the most part, the 'human story' is a personal, subjective narrative, including the author's own experience as a donor. The rest is a mostly objective look at the history of artificial insemination, eugenics and the 'Nobel Prize Sperm Bank' in particular. I say 'mostly objective' because there were some passages where I sensed judgement on the part of Plotz. To be fair we are talking about some distasteful characters here. Robert Graham, the eccentric multi-millionaire who founded the bank, certainly held a racist outlook. However, from the information provided his racism was complex, contradictory and malleable and I suspect it was mostly the result of his upbringing and limited experience and viewpoint rather than something endemic. William Shockley, the Nobel laureate for the co-invention (or theft, depending on your interpretation of the events) of the transistor on the other hand seems to have been a racist by conviction and a thoroughly distasteful character. However we must be wary of dismissing opinions or ideas simply because we dislike the individual who espouses them. This is why the book needs thorough discussion on these ideas and the scientific and logical rationale behind them, or rather the lack thereof. As I say, I sensed judgement on the part of Plotz where the personal and historical narratives get confused, and would have preferred he delivered the facts - separate from own opinion/interpretation - and left any judgement in the hands of the reader.

Similarly, there is a passage where Plotz describes an unproven (in humans) scientific theory and then discusses his own anecdotal evidence (oxymoron!) in support of it! His point may have been only to say that the heritability of characteristics is complex and we cannot make assumptions, but his observations come across as an assumption just as baseless. To be fair, he later reminds us that his small, biased sample could never be used to support any conclusions.

The bank was hardly a success. When it closed operations in 1999 it had produced only 215 children in 19 years, none of whom came from a Nobel Prize winning donor. However, it's influence is felt throughout the industry, particularly their policies of donor choice, donor-testing and high-achieving donors. For all his personal, ideological and public-relations failings, as a businessman Graham understood that he needed to understand the needs of his customers. For example, the 'Repository for Germinal Choice' was one of the first banks to put their prospective donors through medical tests and provide customers with the donor’s medical history. It appears, from what we know, that many of the women who sought semen from the 'Repository for Germinal Choice' did so because of this information rather than any impulse to breed highly intelligent children. Many of the women worked in the health industry - doctors and nurses - who gave the health characteristics of any donor a higher priority.

Today, artificial insemination is more than an industry. It is a necessity for many couples. Plunging fertility rates will only increase the need for it's service. The risk of accidental incest amongst donor children has become very real. Such concerns, and the issue of donor anonymity, will increasingly be addressed in the public forum and the public will be better informed thanks to the interest generated by books like David Plotz's. I found it an accessible, enjoyable and interesting read. However to be truly well-informed, it would be best to supplement this book with something that goes into the issues with greater depth and the information in greater detail. These areas are probably beyond the scope of this book and beyond the reach of it's author.

[Beverly Hollandbeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really interesting. A racist eugenicist decides he can save America by creating superior children, and to that end he establishes a sperm bank that advertises sperm from Nobel prize winners. The Nobel part doesn't pan out too well, but only white, intelligent, athletic types of males are accepted as donors. Reading about the history of such an endeavor might sound dry, but in interviewing the women who availed themselves of his product, the children conceived by the process, and a couple of donors, an emotional, sometimes heart-breaking story emerges. And we are not talking about a long time ago. The sperm bank closed in 1999.

[Zachary Tedesco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plotz went the extra mile in tracking down some of the children and donors from the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, and he provided us with some fascinating and insightful stories of their experiences. But, he's just too biased to be taken seriously. He spent nearly an entire chapter talking about eugenic sterilization programs and even mentioned Hitler at one point. You can hold whatever opinion you want on Robert Graham, but his form of eugenics was not even remotely comparable to that of Hitler's or other racist eugenicists. That diatribe had no place in the book, it was completely irrelevant to the story. The bias is so obvious from the get-go that it ruins an otherwise pretty good book.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

So easy to read, and so much pertinent information for people interested in the role genes play in our development.

The history of eugenics was informative, and the stories of the sperm bank children anecdotal but really worth hearing.

There were bits in the middle I found a little dull, but overall, I was fascinated, and finished the book within three days.

Plotz lands firmly on the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate. Which seems to be fortunate, given the 'achievements' of the Sperminators.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non-fiction. Plotz, a reporter, tells the story of Robert Graham’s plan tell “improve” the human race through superior breeding – using sperm from Nobel prize winners! This seems almost too weird to be true. What makes this account truly fascinating is that Plotz interweaves the stories of Graham, the sperm bank, some of the donors (almost all were not Nobel winners), and some of the children. I wonder what medical ethicists think of the encounters between the children and their donor fathers

[ELA Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as research for one of my upcoming novels. I didn’t expect anything going in, but actually found it very interesting. Throughout the book, you follow the lives of different women who were inseminated using the ‘Nobel Prize sperm bank’. A good book if you’re interested in the nature vs. nurture argument, or the psychology of men who donate sperm. It’s also quite an easy read for non-fiction.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

an easy read that disappoints with it's very conventional and not very thoughtful take on eugenics, sperm donation, and the whole business of fertility clinics. entertaining but a bit disappointing in it's shallowness.

[Millie Kanani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really it’s 2.5 stars, and really I read half a month ago then read the rest this week. It’s an interesting insight into DI. It was written over 10 years ago and does highlight the changes in opinion and regulation that have happened in this field.

[Haley Hughes · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author's an asshole- talking about a 14 year old child: "Her face hadn't yet decided if it wanted to be beautiful or belligerent"
And in then in the same chapter he describes a bunch of juggalos as "Columbine looking"

Hey man, what the fuck?

[__void__ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't believe I bought this book.
It was my fault for thinking that the bank actually had multiple people come out from it.
I wanted more of a treatise on genius not discussions on eugenics and politics involved in making the sperm bank.

[Emily Mellow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting history and account of various families involved in the originally quite eugenic "genius sperm bank", which of course turned out to be total bs. But it was interesting to see the effects on different families, and the various reasons people participated in it.

[Julie Leibee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have very conflicted feelings about this book, but I enjoyed footnote #4 about Donor Orange who called the power company because he was concerned about the “human specimens” in his freezer after a move.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting history and the complications of artificial insemination. Don't feel bad if you weren't asked to donate.

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read (listened) to this as part of a reading challenge. It was interesting but, oh my, arrogance & privilege...

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating subject, stranger than fiction, very well handled

[Noah]

appalling history, compelling story: i learned about contemporary irl eugenics and complicated reproductive emotions, and also got to enjoy a series of family-themed mysteries.

[Aleck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally the best book I have ever read.