Werth, Barry 1952–

PERSONAL:

Born August 22, 1952, in Oceanside, NY; married Kathy Goos (a potter), June 21, 1981; children: Emily, Alex. Education: State University of New York, B.A., 1973; Boston University, M.A., 1980.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Amanda Urban, ICM, 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Journalist and author.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Book Critics Circle Award nomination in biography/autobiography category, 2001, for The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, a Literary Life Shattered by Scandal.

WRITINGS:

The Billion-Dollar Molecule: One Company's Quest for the Perfect Drug, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1994.

Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1998.

The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, a Literary Life Shattered by Scandal, Nan A. Talese (New York, NY), 2001.

(Author of text) From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds, photographs by Alexander Tsiaras, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2002.

(Author of text) The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed, photographs by Alexander Tsiaras, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2004.

31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Barry Werth writes books about complex subjects such as the development of a new drug or the anatomy of a decade-long malpractice case. His 1994 debut, The Billion-Dollar Molecule: One Company's Quest for the Perfect Drug, tells the story of Vertex, a start-up company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded by gifted chemist Joshua Boger. At age thirty-seven, Boger had held a top position at Merck Pharmaceuticals, but he left to form Vertex. It was his dream to design a safer immunosuppressive drug for use on patients who had received transplants. The traditional course to creating a new drug involves altering older compounds already in use for the treatment of diseases. Boger's vision was to build "structure-based" drugs. His goal was to identify a desired action, such as the ability of a hypothetical molecule to attach to a specific enzyme, and then construct that molecule—atom-by-atom, if necessary—so that it would "attach" to the structure of the enzyme. The stakes were high. Releasing to market the first successful structure-based drug could reap a company billions of dollars in profits. To write the story, Werth was given access to everyone at Vertex, and he devoted nearly four years to following Vertex's ups and downs—from Boger's securing of ten million dollars in venture capital for the start-up, through the difficult phase of putting together a top-notch research institution, to the technical complications and the human rivalries that ensued. By the end of Werth's book, Vertex still had no drug on the market, but Boger still had high hopes.

A Publishers Weekly contributor called The Billion-Dollar Molecule "an intriguing story," while A.M. Mattocks, reviewing the book for Choice, called it a "fascinating history" and praised Werth for giving the reader "a sense of the amazing knowledge being accumulated about drug actions on the cellular level." A Kirkus Reviews critic referred to the book as "a you-are-there account" and labeled it "colorful, packed with facts, and delivering a clear message: that the risks of investing in biotechnology aren't just high—they're stratospheric."

Werth's 1998 book, Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine, chronicles what happened in the aftermath of one particular "bad-birth" delivery. "Bad birth" is medical jargon for a delivery in which something goes catastrophically wrong. For the couple in Werth's account, this meant bringing into the world a boy who was so severely mentally and physically retarded that he could not see, voluntarily move his limbs, or feed himself. Tony and Donna Sabia, the protagonists of the story, are a working-class couple. They had not been married long when Donna became pregnant with twins. Nothing over the course of the pregnancy indicated trouble, and nothing seemed to go awry while she was in labor. During delivery at Connecticut's Norwalk Hospital, however, the first twin, Tony Jr., was born limp, ashen in color, and not breathing. His apgar score—a checklist of a baby's health and appearance at birth—was only one out of a possible ten. The second twin was stillborn. This tragedy was only the beginning of the nightmare for the Sabias. Werth details their day-to-day struggles in caring for Tony Jr. and reveals the strain it put on their marriage. At one point Tony Sr., who worked two jobs in order to make ends meet, got drunk and fired a gun at his Chevy pickup truck.

Damages also delves into the Sabias' struggles with the legal and health care systems as they attempted to find redress for what they perceived to be the result of medical errors. The couple's lawyers argued that a forty-dollar ultrasound could have uncovered the problem, which had to do with the shattering of the twins' shared placenta, and both twins could have been saved. Each participant in the drama is given voice in Werth's book: the on-call obstetrician who delivered the ill-fated Sabia twins; the Sabias' skillful malpractice attorney, driven, according to a New York Times Book Review piece by Perri Klass, by a "mix of personal history, political fire and competitive zeal"; insurance company representatives who fought the case because they believed the surviving infant would not live long; and hospital officials who may have had the most at stake. The medical experts for both sides agreed that one twin was dead and the other badly damaged long before the obstetrician arrived on the scene.

The suit dragged on until Tony Jr. was nine years old. The Sabias eventually accepted a 6.25 million dollar settlement from the hospital and its insurance company. Werth notes that it was a hollow victory for the Sabias as they were left still not knowing for sure the cause of this seemingly normal birth procedure gone tragically wrong. As Jeff Giles pointed out in his review of Damages for Newsweek: "A thousand lawyers couldn't make the Sabias' world right again. Their story began in tragedy. Can you tell of a happy ending?" Reviewing Damages in the San Jose Mercury News, Kate Shatzkin felt the book "deserves to be read," but took exception to Werth's style. "Because he has come late to the drama, Werth cannot help being somewhat distanced even from his main characters," the critic remarked, adding: "In the end, I felt I knew the case that bore the Sabias' name, but not the people at the center of it." Mike France, writing for Business Week, called the book's domestic scenes "moving," but declared that "the narrative slows down whenever it turns to the lawsuit." The author, added France, "devotes pages and pages to raw text from the depositions of medical experts." To Klass, an obstetrician and author herself, "the book vividly conveys the day-after-day drudgery of life for the parents of a devastated child." The domestic details, Klass continued, grounds the volume, "reminding you always that this is not just a story of professional jousting, of money and reputations and legal stipulations." Klass concluded that "Damages deserves to be read and thought about and discussed by people on all sides of the complex and often ugly collisions of law and medicine, but especially by people who identify with the Sabias' need for compensation and recognition."

Werth turns to biography in 2001 with The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, a Literary Life Shattered by Scandal. His subject was a distinguished scholar and critic during the mid-twentieth century. Arvin taught English at Smith College, was the author of several respected literary studies—his expertise in Nathaniel Hawthorne is the basis for the pun in Werth's title—and won the 1951 National Book Award. Arvin was also the mentor—and lover—of writer Truman Capote. During an era when homosexuality could result in a shattered career and even arrest, Arvin led a decidedly low-key personal life. He was married briefly in 1932 to a young woman who had been his student; but even then, according to Martha Stone in a Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide article, Arvin had her read Walt Whitman's "Calamus" poems, "thinking that his fiancée would grasp the importance of these poems and that she would be understanding about his homosexuality. Their meaning entirely escaped her, however, and Arvin chose not to enlighten her on his intended meaning." The Arvin scandal erupted in 1960, when the aging professor, increasingly bold about his sexual orientation, was found in possession of "pornography"—in this case, several muscle-man magazines. The magazines were recovered in a raid of Arvin's apartment by troopers who had been alerted after a package addressed to the professor had "broken open" in the post office.

Arvin, "frail, nervous and deeply closeted," in the words of Lambda Book Report contributor Vincent Brann, "gave way to panic and allowed the invaders access to his pictures and diaries. He also revealed the names of other colleagues and friends who had shared the pornographic pictures with him, most specifically two faculty colleagues at Smith College." The Scarlet Professor recounts how the arrest was reported nationwide, often accompanied by lurid headlines. The professor was sentenced for not only pornography but also "lewd" (i.e., homosexual) behavior; his trial is detailed in Werth's book. Arvin was fired from Smith College even though, as Werth points out, a heterosexual professor who had carried on affairs with several students was not punished as harshly. Werth juxtaposes Arvin's ordeal with that of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. To Library Journal critic Carolyn Craft he also "ably details the ‘witchhunt,’ first for Communists, then for homosexuals, in mid-20th-century America."

As The Scarlet Professor relates, Arvin, who was admitted to a mental hospital while under indictment, made something of a recovery. He lived on a half-salary from Smith College, and said he did not miss teaching, likening reading student papers to "holding urine in one's mouth." He also wrote a biography of Longfellow prior to his death in 1963. Nonetheless, commented Caleb Crain in a New York Times Book Review article, Arvin "was a victim of the closet who cooperated with its enforcers. It would be cruel to blame him for his betrayals, but he wasn't blameless, which make him compelling but not quite pleasant company." Crain also wondered if Werth's treatment of his subject is complete; the author seems "unsure how to make emotional sense of this moral puzzle. I don't know any better than he does." Brann thought the author did right by taking an objective stance: "Despite the absence of several key persons who were involved, … Werth has pieced together the whole sad but fascinating story. He writes with admirable clarity, free of bias, leaving the reader to come to his own conclusion."

In two coffee-table books, From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds and The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed, Werth teams up with photographer Alexander Tsiaras to take a look inside the wonders of the human form. Werth provides the text for these two works that showcase Tsiaras's visual talents. The first volume features a series of images that have been enhanced by computer, revealing the human fetus at various stages of development. The second volume illuminates the structure of the adult human body, from skeleton to nervous system. In a review of The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman for Curled Up with a Good Book online, Marie D. Jones remarked: "If you've ever wanted to know how your body does what it does, why it does it, and what parts are involved, this book will answer your every question even as it fills you with an almost mystical sense of awe."

Continuing with his propensity for diverse subject matter, Werth turns to politics in his next project. 31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today looks back at the thirty-one day period following the Watergate scandal between the resignation of President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford's decision to pardon him for his crimes. During those days, both Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney—both major participants in the U.S. government under the leadership of President George W. Bush—played small, yet important roles in the events leading up to the pardon. Werth suggests that the first month Ford spent in office played a role in each politician's rise to his current level of power. Rumsfeld was an ambassador to NATO at the time, and thereby participated in the presidential transition; Cheney worked under him as his deputy.

A reviewer for Publishers Weekly discounted a portion of Werth's claim in 31 Days, noting that "both [politicians] were already well positioned for stellar careers." However, a contributor for Kirkus Reviews referred to Werth's effort as "an eye-opening tale of vicious interoffice warfare, implying that dog-eat-dog politics remain in place on Pennsylvania Avenue." Michiko Kakutani remarked in the New York Times that Werth sheds little new light on the rise of Rumsfeld and Cheney, but she noted that the strength of the book lies in how the author "gives the reader a visceral appreciation of the mind-boggling challenges facing Mr. Ford on his arrival at the White House." Kakutani concluded that the book "has a curiously hasty feel, and never fully delivers on the premise embodied by its subtitle." Deirdre Donahue, writing for USA Today, however, felt the work brings Werth's subject back in line with modern politics, as was his intention. Donahue commented: "The questions remain: Who limits presidential power? What role should the media play? Is the government above the law? The president? Werth skillfully captures how these questions shook the nation in 1974 and how Americans today continue to search for the answers."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Business Week, April 13, 1998, Mike France, review of Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine.

Choice, July-August, 1994, A.M. Mattocks, review of The Billion-Dollar Molecule: One Company's Quest for the Perfect Drug, p. 1757.

Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, September, 2001, Martha Stone, "It Happened in Northampton," review of The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, a Literary Life Shattered by Scandal, p. 40.

Journal of Forensic Economics, fall, 1999, Frank Slesnick, review of Damages, p. 267.

Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 1993, review of The Billion-Dollar Molecule, p. 1514; January 15, 2006, review of 31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today, p. 79.

Lambda Book Report, September, 2001, Vincent Brann, "Betrayed by Beefcake," review of The Scarlet Professor, p. 14.

Library Journal, April 1, 2001, Carolyn Craft, review of The Scarlet Professor, p. 102.

Newsweek, February 16, 1998, Jeff Giles, review of Damages, p. 70.

New York Times, April 11, 2006, Michiko Kakutani, "The Ford Administration as a Dress Rehearsal for Today."

New York Times Book Review, February 22, 1998, Perri Klass, review of Damages; August 5, 2002, Caleb Crain, "Search and Destroy," review of The Scarlet Professor.

Publishers Weekly, January 10, 1994, review of The Billion-Dollar Molecule, pp. 53-54; February 20, 2006, review of 31 Days, p. 150.

San Jose Mercury News, April 5, 1998, Kate Shatzkin, review of Damages.

ONLINE

Curled up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (April 15, 2007), Marie D. Jones, review of The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed.

USA Today Online,http://www.usatoday.com/ April 12, 2006, Deirdre Donahue, review of 31 Days.