A gifted storyteller...

Time Out New York

According to Armand Marie Leroi, a molecular biologist and lecturer in evolutionary genetics at the Imperial College in London, genetic deformities such as conjoined twins, dwarfism, gigantism and albinism are a natural consequence of the laws that regulate development. The same cells that grow into legs in one part of hte embryo will create eyes when located in another area. An infinite number of mutations are possible during the formation of a human being, and even the slightest disruption can throw things off. In what Leroi calls "the genetic casino," the line between perfection and grotesque deformity is unbearably thin.

Leroi traces teratology - literally "the science of monsters" - from its origins in the 16th century to the present. In doing so, he documents the ways in which mutants have been perceived as either freakish or beautiful at different points in history. Weaving folklore with scientific data, he tells how conjoined twins, for instance, were considere accidents of fate in the early 1500s but regarded as symbols of divine omnipotence a hundred years later.

Leroi is a gifted storyteller. When he cites cases of cyclopic children (born with one eye in the centre of their faces), "cleppies" with hands moulded like claws or people with furlike hair covereing their entire bodies, he places each mutation within a literary or mythological framework.

Ultimately, Mutants points to the normalacy of abnormality: After all, weak eyes, crooked teetch and asymmetrical ears are mutations, while so called anomalies like red hair can be considered attractive. As Charles Darwin (another scientist fascinated with genetic differences) believed, nature's beauty is its variety.

Sarah Fay
Time Out New York (December 11-18 2003)