One Potato
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
Eddie Morales finds his lowly R&D life completely upended when his Boise-based biotech firm dispatches him to Puerto Malogrado, a tiny but tumultuous country in South America where the international media is accusing their experimental potatoes of causing a bizarre medical crisis.
Eddie unwillingly arrives in South America only to find his plans for a quick resolution thwarted when he gets caught between the two sides of an impending revolution, each hoping to capitalize on the potato scandal in order to seize power.
Eddie stumbles into a conspiracy that reveals just how far his company will go to advance its potato empire. He is forced to make a choice: what—and who—will he sacrifice to preserve his own future in this brave new world of biotechnology?
Darkly funny and compassionately rendered, One Potato charts the crooked line between nature and technology and takes a deep look into a future shaped by disasters both natural and devastatingly man-made.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McMahon (Dream of Another America) serves up a biting satire of genetic engineering and its discontents. Everyman protagonist Eddie Morales works in R&D for Idaho-based Tuberware, which he describes as "the world leader in all potato-related products." His big project is a vending machine capable of producing French fries on demand, but that changes when CEO Warren Shepherd orders him to travel to the troubled South American country of Puerto Malogrado to deal with a potential PR disaster. Puerto Malogrado had been growing Tuberware's DS400 tubers, which had been genetically modified with dog saliva to resist bacteria, while FDA approval remains pending. A dozen years of testing has proven the DS400s infection-free, but reports have emerged that three children born in the area where the potatoes were tested can only walk on all fours, which Shepherd suspects are hoaxes fomented by those opposed to GMOs. Despite having no background in genetics or public relations, Morales is dispatched to the country, accompanied by a journalist eager to break a sensational story. What he finds endangers his career and his life. McMahon successfully parodies the excesses of corporate greed while presenting a moving portrayal of life in an impoverished country. This winning story feels all too real.
