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Amoreena Daniels is a brilliant young premed student. Her mother is dying of cancer but Amoreena vows to try to keep her alive, at least until she graduates from medical school. Her mother sacrificed everything for many years in order to give Amoreena what she needed to become a medical student, and Amy (as her mother calls her) wants to be able to pay some of it back. Unbeknownst to Amy, though, her mother has allowed her medical insurance to lapse and the hospital wants money in order to keep her mother in the experimental program which seems to be keeping her alive. A medical clinic approaches Amoreena with a proposition. They need healthy young women to become surrogate mothers for wealthy couples who want children but cannot conceive in the normal way. After thinking it over, and examining the clinic, she agrees to the procedure. The fertilized egg takes hold and the fetus starts to grow. But it grows too quickly. Amoreena senses something is wrong and tries to find out what. Dr Nayes knows the science involved in gene manipulation, and that is what this book is all about. However gripping the descriptions are, especially of the trip to Guatemala and the escape through the jungle, the story is sort of a cross between COMA and ROSEMARY'S BABY. The fetus is the gargoyle of the title, a product of genetic engineering, with pig and monkey genes mixed with the human, the purpose of which is to grow fetuses whose organs can be used in transplantations. Mostly illegal immigrants are used as surrogates -- illegal immigrants with no relatives, so no one will miss them when they are gone. GARGOYLES is an interesting study of science gone wrong; a study of what happens when unscrupulous people get hold of a new technique and use it for profit. It could have used a better editor and some tightening up, but on the whole, it is a frightening read.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, February 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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