10/27/97 A CLONE'S TALE

A CLONE'S TALE

CELLMATES
By Robert A. Burton
Russian Hill Press 272pp $19.95

From The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes to The Boys From Brazil to Jurassic Park, film and literature have usually portrayed biotechnology as flirting with epic, even apocalyptic, consequences. The more subtle and personal implications of genetic engineering have rarely gotten a thoughtful airing. Now, San Francisco neurologist Robert Burton has written a refreshing antidote to the little cloned Hitlers and the Jeep-chomping T. rexes: His third novel, Cellmates, is an intelligent, psychological bio-thriller.
Meet Artie Singleton. He's hardly the first baby boomer to suffer from depression and a vague sense that something's lacking. His love life is marginal, and his mother has just died. Then, he gets a life-changing letter: He learns that he actually is one of 10 clones that were created at a fertility clinic from a single sperm and egg--and then carried by 10 different mothers. The terminally ill wife of the scientist who undertook the procedure asks Artie to deliver the news to his nine absolutely identical brothers, all separated before birth.
Ethicists weighed all the big questions when Dolly, the cloned sheep, made her appearance last spring. But Burton's novel is a poignant argument that even well-intentioned manipulation of DNA, the blueprint of what makes a person unique, has the potential to wreak havoc upon a person's psyche. As Artie tracks down carbon copies of himself in far-flung locales--an island in Puget Sound, an inner-city mission in Portland, Ore., the Las Vegas crap tables--he is struck by how strong their emotional bonds are, despite the radically different paths they have taken. When some of the clones apparently commit suicide after his visits, Artie feels that his world is collapsing.
Burton is a good writer who brings a light touch to medical and technical jargon. And he provides plenty of humorous, subtle, human moments. In one exchange, Artie is describing his own rather ordinary life to a clone whose life seems morally superior. Artie is suddenly struck by his own inadequacy: Prattling on about his ex-girlfriend and his Peugeot, he realizes that ''the more he said, the less he'd be.'' But when he sees the run-down casino where another brother makes his sorry living, Artie gets to feel superior. The cheesy cowgirl in the sputtering sign outside, Burton writes, ''had some incurable neon disease.''
Cellmates raises issues that have growing resonance for us all. When, for example, Artie learns from a brain scan that he has homicidal tendencies--and thus so do all his brothers--we're reminded that genetic information is both very personal and also a bond with others. As technology reveals our genetic secrets, will we ''owe it'' to our siblings, our children, our parents, our partners, to reveal all? Are genetic tendencies destiny--or just a wake-up call? Ultimately, Cellmates delivers a good read and a valuable reminder: Genetic tinkering doesn't have to trigger the apocalypse to change lives in ways that are both profound and frightening.
By JOAN O'C. HAMILTON