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uninvited
MOVING IN WITH THE UNWILLING SUBJECTS OF YOUR BOOK

(Continued from Home page)

Word came down, before my first week was out, that the natives were suspicious. What exactly was I doing here, they wanted to know. On a Wednesday night in the lounge, I explained the book, my goals, my background. I offered myself as a field assistant. Were there any questions?

"Is your book going to be anything like this?" A postdoc waved a computer printout.

It was a copy of a story I'd written for Outside magazine in 1995, celebrating the work of the researchers who lived on BCI. The story also contained a brief party scene featuring dancing, drinking and cross-cultural flirting. Was the wider world surprised that scientists living on a remote tropical island drank beer and had sex? I hadn't given it a second thought at the time. But many residents, it seemed, had been thinking of nothing else since the story appeared. "If Jesse Helms reads this, BCI could lose its funding," said an agitated Egbert Leigh, the island's resident scientist and its elder statesman.

My field season had hardly begun, and already I was in danger of being booted off the island. I explained that magazine editors often try to hype a story's prurient aspects, and I apologized for being insensitive to their concerns. A book couldn't help but be broader than a magazine article, I said.  

The residents, it turned out, had no problem with me documenting their work. It was the time they spent not working that had them in a twist. "We don't just work here," a senior scientist told me. "We live here." I wasn't sure what to say. I knew that everything that seemed poignant and heroic about the scientists' work would seem ever so much more poignant and heroic if the scientists didn't come off as cardboard figures, as high priests of esoterica.

"Personalities are a vehicle," I told the swarm of skeptical faces, my voice cracking. "They're not a focus."

The tension mounted. What was going to be on the record, and what was off? the researchers demanded. What gave me the right to report on their private lives? Would residents be allowed to review my manuscript, the chapters about them? How could they protect themselves? What if my book hurt the Smithsonian, the way they thought my Outside article had?  

I stalled. First, I said, you should read my other magazine stories, see if they fairly represent scientists at work in the field. As for reviewing my book manuscript before publication, it simply isn't done. "But I'll ask my editor anyway," I said, trying to be conciliatory. I had no interest in making enemies: it would be no fun to live among people who didn't want me around.  

There was a lull, then a bat researcher barked, "Even if she does let us read what she's written, who's to make her change anything?" I was near tears now. Other residents started piling on. They made some good points. Scientists aren't used to seeing their names in print; they prefer to toil in obscurity. A book might reveal a mistake that a grad student's advisor might otherwise never have learned about. Someone else noted that my usual subjects were established scientists: many of BCI's scientists were young, in a competitive field, and I could inadvertently hurt their careers.

A few more minutes of this, and Egbert stood to leave. "When you're done here," he said to me, "you might want to come up for a drink."

A Pariah in the Dining Room

The next 24 hours were tough, but I found being at the center of a controversy perversely invigorating. It put me in full stubbornness mode. A day passed, the island launch steamed in with the mail. The residents passed around copies of my magazine articles. People got friendlier and things settled down. We worked out a deal: I would write only about residents who had specifically agreed to be written about. They'd be allowed to review the scientific parts of the chapters that involved them. They could make comments, but I'd reserve editorial judgment and was under no obligation to make changes.

Before long, residents began to invite me into the field, and I soon had more work than I could handle. Some scientists, it turned out, were eager to be written about. They were just like anyone else. A book would publicize their work; it would help them get good jobs. Did I have their names spelled correctly?

A few residents still would have nothing to do with me, and that was fine. Enough study subjects were now habituated to my presence. Periodically a new resident harboring all the old skepticism would show up on the island. I explained my project yet again. Winning over residents was a continual process, I realized, though it would get easier as time went on. I had allies soon enough, and a track record. Within a few months, I even had my own clique: the researchers with whom I did fieldwork, the regulars at the bar outside the lounge, and the more exclusive drinking club of Egbert Leigh, up the hill near the laundry room.

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