The Plasma Cell Report by Joel Geiderman; Austin, Texas: River Grove Books © 2024; ISBN 9781632-997951; 320 pages plus epilogue, author’s note, acknowledgments, and about the author, $20.95.
SAN DIEGO – This book starts off interestingly; Katie Shepard who looks to be in her early 20’s claims that she is 63 years old. The first reaction of health professionals who treat her after a car accident is to think that perhaps she is a psychiatric case. But her bearing, her knowledge of the past, her story of how the changes came over her, combine to make the doctors think they should run a battery of tests just to make sure.
The tests confirm her story. Antibodies were formed in her body in an unsuccessful attempt to fight off the cancer that now threatens her life. Those antibodies also turned off the genetic mechanism in her body that controls aging. She stopped growing older and then started growing younger.
Okay, so here author Geiderman presents us with an opportunity to imagine what it would be like to suddenly grow younger than one’s daughter, but rather than diving deeply into that story, he had another story in mind – one which, I am sad to say, was not nearly so interesting. It plowed the familiar ground of political intrigue.
He posited the existence of a highly secretive, powerful branch of government – the National Security Agency – which operates as a shadow government, sometimes helping, sometimes coming into conflict with the President of the United States, depending on whether the mysterious chairman of the agency feels policies originating in the White House enhance or harm our country’s national security.
The realization that a serum could be mass produced from Katie Shepard’s antibodies that could offer longevity, even immortality, to humanity sets the National Security Agency against the President, who thinks making extended life available to Americans will guarantee him favorable reviews in the history books.
In this novel, the chairman and his trusted counselors at the National Security Agency strongly disagree with the President. If the President goes forward with his plan, they foresee overpopulation leading to food shortages and riots not only in America but around the world because the technology inevitably will spread.
So, the political battle takes center stage in this book, relegating Katie Shepard and Dr. Philip Insbrook, the Jewish doctor who treats and falls in love with her, to supporting cast in this clash between government titans.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.