Eileen Pollack is the author of the novels Breaking and Entering (a New York Times Editor's Choice selection) and Paradise, New York, as well as two collections of short fiction, an award-winning book of nonfiction, and two creative-nonfiction textbooks. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories. She is a professor on the faculty of the Helen Zell MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She divides her time between Manhattan and Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“Hard-hitting, difficult to read, and impossible to put
down.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Honest, readable, and brave.”
—Library Journal
“Offering an engrossing look at the barriers still facing women in
science...Pollack draws attention to this important and vexing
problem with a personal narrative, beautifully written and full of
important insights on the changes needed to make those barriers
crumble...Any young woman or man on the way to college to major in
science will find great lessons in this book.”
—Washington Post
“Her memoir rings authentic, its lessons essential. A bitter pill
to swallow but a vital addition to the important and frustratingly
ongoing discussion about gender equity.”
—Poornima Apte, Booklist
“The Only Woman in the Room is absolutely brilliant—even a
sleeping pill and head cold couldn’t stop me from reading it
through the night. Pollack’s story reveals so much—I
want to give it to my children, my husband, my older sister (a
biologist), and every physicist I know, perhaps with key passages
underlined. And especially, young women in science: read this
book!”
—Meg Urry, President of the American Astronomical Society, and
former chair of the Department of Physics at Yale University
“With excruciating candor Eileen Pollack details how society's
relentless message that girls lack the intrinsic aptitude for
high-level math and physics leaves young women without the
confidence to stay the course in the brutally competitive
environment of high-powered science. This is a riveting,
insider's-account of how unconscious biases make a mockery of
meritocracy, why women's equality remains elusive, and why Larry
Summers was so wrong.”
—Nancy Hopkins, Amgen Inc. Professor of Biology (emerita),
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“In Eileen Pollack’s vivid description of the issues facing women
in science, I immediately saw the truth of what I have lived.
Pollack is convincing in showing how the obstacles for women in the
U.S. are erected by our culture. In the 1960’s my mother had to put
up with exclusionary rules that kept her out of a career in
science. You would think things might have gotten better for my
generation, and for the current generation. But they have not.
Eileen Pollack courageously and honestly examines her own life and
shows us why.”
—Carol Greider, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
and Daniel Nathans Professor and Chair of the Department of
Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University
“My remarks on women and science generated much heat—if they helped
stimulate Eileen Pollack’s introspections and reflections, they
shed light as well. I certainly understand many aspects of the
issue better for reading Pollack’s work. We all want great
opportunities for all, and as she demonstrates, the world has a
long way to go.”
—Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and
President Emeritus, Harvard University, and former Secretary of the
Treasury
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