BOOKS IN BRIEF
A Left-Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw by David Wolman (Da Capo, 236 pp., $23.95). David Wolman's first full-length piece of pop-science is a book reviewer's quandary: a well-researched, well-written work that is simply not worth reading. Had Wolman stuck to his usual forums (Newsweek, Science & Spirit magazine), his exploration of left-handedness would have made for a delightfully quirky essay. Somewhere between pages 10 and 212, however, Wolman's work loses its novelty value and turns into a sleep-inducing muddle of a book.
This is not to say that it has no positive attributes. Having conceived of the idea to traverse the globe in contemplation of the southpaw mystique, Wolman cannot be faulted for lack of creativity. His search takes him from Tokyo University's School of Medicine to the blink-and-you'll-miss-it town of Left Hand, West Virginia. One wants to be as enthusiastic about this voyage as the author, but Wolman's zany idea veers toward the soporific in practice.
The book's discussion of various genealogical and environmental theories of hand preference is tedious. What's more, the theories themselves are so numerous and conflicting that they call the value of Wolman's entire exercise into question. At the book's end, the reader will likely have trouble distinguishing Marian Annett's "Right Shift Theory" from Robert Sainburg's laterality research from Bill Hopkins's work with chimpanzees. While each of these theories is interesting in its own right, the way Wolman jumbles them together makes them nearly incomprehensible.
While Wolman is dry in his treatment of the science behind his subject, he shines when examining left-handedness from a sociocultural perspective. One highlight of the book is his meeting with the lefty Diabolos Rex, "self-appointed Devil King" and Megister Templi for the Church of Satan. With 4-inch Teflon horn-shaped implants in his forehead, Rex provides humorous insight into the historical correlation of the left-handed with the sinister. Had Wolman spent more time on similar endeavors, and less time mired in scientific jargon, his book might have been more readable.
A southpaw myself, I want to like Wolman's book. He is a seasoned writer, with a unique, self-effacing style that almost makes up for his subject matter. Therefore I praise Wolman for his study of left-handedness, a mix of academia and hokum that would have made a lovely magazine article.
- Abigail Lavin