This biographical novel portrays the development and career of neuroscientist Marty Dennis. After tracing some family history, the story focuses on Marty's progression through graduate school, postdoctoral training, being junior faculty, senior faculty, and finally department chairperson. Along the way, the story reveals a number of twists and turns, including finding the love of his life, enduring a long episode of chronic fatigue syndrome (before it was so named), discovering the subjective realities of the NIH grant review process, and adapting to the demands and vicissitudes of academic life. Although the story is fictional, it is largely based on the author's personal experience. Indeed, a fair amount of real neuroscience is explained, albeit in story book fashion. The formula (N= 1) described by the title gradually becomes a theme in several places, referring to the fact that people often draw premature conclusions from too few numbers (N) of experimental subjects, with N=1 being the extreme example. The human fallacy of this tendency appears in full force at the end, with the final plot being surprising as well as reassuring. N Equals One is both entertaining and informative. The life experiences described, sometimes comical and other times serious, could well be real, as they closely resemble real events. Descriptions of the scientific process, of academic life, and of science itself are all in fact true. The reader acquires an intimate understanding of how scientists behave and function. In perhaps different ways, N Equals One will be interesting, and sometimes fascinating, to both scientists and non-scientists.
