{shortcode-d3081dbebabcc7fd48a64eb044bd4b1e8ee8230d}
Austin E. Taylor ’21 — former Harvard English and Chemistry double concentrator, Mainer, author, and future Stanford law student — is interested in empathy. Her forthcoming debut novel, “Notes on Infinity,” explores what propels the most driven people to do things that the rest of society may find unfathomable.
“The book is really about empathy and trying to understand why people do things,” Taylor said in an interview with The Crimson.
“I wanted to remind the reader that when they see headlines about some scandal or other, there is a whole backstory of real people that lived a life up to that point, and that is now being reduced to 10 words. And I think that it is really important to humanize people in every situation, no matter what,” Taylor said.
“Notes on Infinity” is a cautionary tale of venture capital culture gone wrong. The novel follows Zoe, a Harvard student and daughter of an MIT professor, as she meets Jack, a wicked-smart and mysterious Mainer who is equal parts annoying and alluring. Together, Jack and Zoe begin to develop a possible cure for aging, and are thrown into the biotech startup world at a dizzying rate. The novel exposes the evils of the startup sphere, the double standards that women face in the STEM world, and the dangers of intense media coverage.
In the novel, Zoe faces many setbacks, such as peer disregard, in comparison to Jack since she is a woman in the biotech industry. Taylor was inspired to tackle this topic after experiencing similar double standards in the field of chemistry.
“I think a lot of the main character, Zoe’s, experiences definitely reflect my own experiences,” Taylor said.
Beyond her own experiences as a chemist at Harvard, Taylor was also inspired by the way that the media had covered previous scandals in the science world. She specifically pointed to Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted of fraud in relation to her health technology startup Theranos.
“We all watched Elizabeth Holmes go way up and then — really, really fast — way down,” Taylor said. “I’m not excusing anything that she did, but I think that the coverage of her on both ends was very, very gendered. She was the girl wonder. It was like, ‘Isn’t she awesome?’”
The connection between gender and media representation played an important role in Taylor’s writing.
“Afterwards, it was like, ‘Oh, she was, she must have been seducing her funders and she was some sort of seductress.’ I perceived that, in the media, [her gender was] turned against her in a way that was very troubling. And so that was something that I wanted to sort of point at and hope to give people a bit of insight into in the novel,” she said.
Beyond focusing on how headlines can distort scientific breakthroughs, the novel also shows the varied experiences of Harvard College students. Taylor is a Mainer, and one of the novel’s main characters, Jack, is from the same area of the state as her. She uses Jack’s upbringing to dispel assumptions about her state and highlight the hidden battles of many Harvard students.
“Central Maine is nothing like the sort of wealthier, coastal, southern Maine,” Taylor said. “It’s very rural. It’s very red. It is very poor, especially in pockets. And I wanted to write a character from Maine going to Harvard, because my transition to Harvard was very jarring. The culture shock was pretty intense. I also felt like I didn’t know anyone and wasn’t plugged into these pre-existing networks.”
Taylor hopes that Jack’s experiences will demonstrate the pressure that high-achieving college students have to undergo, whether from Maine or other diverse backgrounds.
“Both main characters feel very out of place in their own way — Zoe, because she’s a woman in STEM, and Jack, because he’s from a very different background,” Taylor said. “And I would hope that Harvard students would read about these other Harvard students feeling really out of place and think, ‘Oh, when I feel really out of place, maybe that’s not just me.’”
While Taylor is passionate about exploring a diverse array of topics through writing, she was not always sure she was going to be a writer. She attributed her success in part to the diverse learning environment that Harvard fostered.
“I was not at Harvard thinking, ‘I want to be a writer, how do I prepare myself to be a writer?’” Taylor said. “But I think I was someone who loved to write and pursue a lot of things that were writing-heavy and had a broad liberal arts education, which I think is great for anyone who wants to do anything. Go Harvard, go academic freedom, go liberal arts!”
Taylor hopes to use her interests in the liberal arts, technology, and regulation in the next steps of her career. While she has had success as a chemistry concentrator and as an author, she now sees herself pursuing the law.
“I’m headed to Stanford in the fall, which is very exciting, and I am hoping to have a parallel career as a novelist alongside some sort of career as an attorney,” Taylor said.
While Taylor is generally interested in the intersection of the law and technology, as a writer, she is specifically attentive to how it will affect creatives. She pointed to the rise of generative AI and the potential dangers it poses to authors.
“Now I’m really interested in generative AI regulation. It very directly impacts my livelihood,” Taylor said. “As someone who has always loved reading, has always loved books, I care a lot about storytelling, and I think storytelling is deeply, deeply important. I think writing and reading stories is perhaps our best tool to cultivate empathy, and I think that right now we’ve got a shortage of empathy, and so it is the worst possible time to be threatening that really important work with a new technology that has the potential to be extremely disruptive.”
Taylor has obviously found success in a diverse array of fields. When asked about her advice for current Harvard College students, she pointed out that progress can often look nonlinear and that some paths may surprise you.
“You don’t know yet how the things that you’re doing will serve you later, but they will,” she said. “Even the things that end up being dead ends are going to be useful to you in some way at some point.”
In “Notes on Infinity,” Zoe and Jack deal with the same stressors that Taylor points out. Their story, and Taylor’s accomplishments, display that there is no right way to achieve goals and that following some preconceived notion of success may spell out eventual failure.
“Notes on Infinity” will be released on June 3.
—Staff writer Hannah E. Gadway can be reached at hannah.gadway@thecrimson.com.
