Cloning of Joanna May, The (1990)
By Faye Weldon
After she discovers that her husband had her cloned thirty years before, Joanna becomes interested in finding her clones and living vicariously through their very different lives.
When Carl May catches his wife cheating, he quickly divorces Joanna and kills her lover. At sixty years old, Joanna feels stagnant, and though she enjoys a relationship with her gardener, her husband’s abandonment is a constant source of dismay. When she learns about Carl’s new, younger mistress, she confronts him in a hysterical fit. Carl’s rage mirrors her own, and he inadvertently reveals that thirty years before, he had had her cloned. Dr. Holly, Carl’s associate, had manipulated one of Joanna’s eggs so that it produced four clones. The fertilized eggs were inserted into four different women, who birthed and raised the daughters without imparting the secret of their origins. Joanna investigates and learns about the women: Jane, the movie executive; Gina, the domestically abused mother; Alice, the cold supermodel; and Julie, the bored housewife. Although the women share the same DNA, their lives have taken very different turns. By chance, the clones encounter each other, and unite to uncover their pasts. They reunite with Joanna, but it seems Carl is not done with them; he is looking to either kill the clones, or turn one of them into his mistress.
The ethical considerations of cloning and DNA proprietorship are raised with the use of Joanna’s egg. While she considers it a theft of her self, equating her DNA to her personal property, Dr. Holly indicates that as “parent”, she can no longer demand rights on behalf of her clones. Although Joanna was unaware of the “borrowing” of her eggs, she did believe she had gone to Holly for an abortion; could she claim proprietorship of DNA information gleaned from that tissue? Another consideration is the supposed depletion of self – personality or soul – which might accompany the clones. Joanna must decide, knowing that Carl intends to kill them, whether they have a right to exist on their own; as copies of her DNA, are they extension of herself? And if so, do they have individual rights to life separate from that which she would grant to them? Certainly, they present as individuals, their physical forms and personalities shaped in part by their upbringing. Gina, for instance, is shorter because of a premature birth, and much heftier than her clone sisters from emotional distress. Carl questions whether or not Joanna’s infidelity is a product of nature or nurture, and because each of her clones feels compelled to engage in adulterous affairs, concludes this trait is genetically carried. Physical characteristics, like head tilts, also seem to carry between the women, and Joanna and the clones seem to exhibit indifference to human life. In spite of the obvious individuality of the women, they begin to conduct their interpersonal affairs as if they are branches of one larger entity, thus reinforcing Carl’s claim that the women are parts of Joanna rather than separate beings.
Evaluation: This may be a difficult novel to get through, if only because the characters are so unlikable. In the end, it matters little whether or not Carl will kill Joanna or her clones, since the entire cast manages to evoke little sympathy from readers.
– Natalie Champ