The American scientist James D Watson is famous, by his own estimation, for two achievements. He discovered the structure of DNA with Francis Crick in 1953, and he wrote a bestselling account of their research, The Double Helix. Although the Nobel prize-winning discovery might seem the greater accomplishment, Watson’s new autobiography suggests that his literary aspirations were as colossal as his scientific ambitions. His masterwork took 15 years to write, and, on publication in 1968, alienated some of his closest collaborators. It is still in print.

The Double Helix was judged at the time the most candid literary memoir ever penned by a scientist: the drama of ideas, the race to be first, the blind alleys, the petty rivalries, the frenetic arguments in Cambridge pubs, are all grippingly related. Then there’s the sex. As Watson once remarked: “Almost everything I ever did, even as a scientist, was in the hope of meeting a pretty girl.” At the heart of the book was a woman he found less than appealing: Rosalind Franklin. Watson studied her X-rays of DNA strands at King’s College, London, without her knowledge. They turned out to be key to identifying DNA’s helical structure. His account of this incident (and his denigration of her character and scientific standing) would prompt a long-running controversy over her contribution to the epoch-making discovery.

His new autobiography begins unpromisingly as a stilted account of Watson’s scientific education, punctuated by platitudinous advice for young scientists – such as, yes, “avoid boring people”, “always have an audience for your experiments”, and “join the editorial board of a new journal”. Then he retells the story of the DNA discovery, complete with that crucial glimpse of Franklin’s X-rays. He owed this, he insists, to a decision by her colleague Maurice Wilkins. In any case, he adds, she was on the wrong track. Wilkins, writes Watson, “thought that Rosalind had been badly deluding herself, and to prove it he impulsively showed me an X-ray photo that the King’s group had been keeping secret”. Watson goes on to accuse Franklin of having failed to “interact with other scientists”. Which leads to the end-of-chapter aphorism: “Stay in close contact with your intellectual competitors.” He might have added: whether they are aware of the contact or not.

Once this special pleading is out of the way, the book jolts into life, with a remarkable 25 pages of lively prose. The writing of The Double Helix (originally titled Honest Jim, then, ludicrously, Base Pairs) was attended by a variety of muses, including one Pat Collinge, with her “blue eyes and urchin dress”, then a tennis-playing Betjamanesque lovely called Cynthia, whom Watson hoped to entice away from her fiancé on the strength of his literary and scientific genius. To complicate matters, he was also writing a book on molecular biology, and lecturing all over the world. An impression of the outlandishness of his literary saga can be gained from his comment that there was a period of “writer’s block” that lasted “several hours”, as well as the occasional self-comparisons with literary greats, including Joseph Conrad. As he drafted and redrafted the manuscript (typed up by a series of willing lasses), chapters swirled around like confetti. As the manuscript circulated, the dismay and outrage of friends and colleagues increased. One of the chief objections, according to Watson, concerned his treatment of Franklin. But there were others: the son of Linus Pauling, the eminent chemist, objected to his father being described as an “ass” and his chemistry as “screwy”. He complained that the work was “a disgraceful example of malevolence and egocentricity”. Watson comments that since the remarks were “true”, he was “loath to remove them before absolutely necessary”. Honest Jim, see.

Related Internet Links

• Buy Avoid Boring People by James D Watson

DNA of Dr Watson

A former protegee of James Watson examines the complex legacy of a Nobel laureate

• Enhancing the species

BACKGROUND

• The Sunday Times reviews DNA: The Secret of Life by James D Watson with Andrew Berry

• Call that being nice, professor?

• Race row Nobel winner suspended, scraps tour

• Black people 'less intelligent' says scientist

As for Crick, he wrote Watson a long letter of acidulous criticism, copied to a circuit of scientific great men, describing the book as “science as gossip” and “vulgar”. Watson had decided to open the book with the sentence: “I have never seen Francis in modest mood.” According to Watson, Crick was so baffled by the book that he showed the manuscript to a psychiatrist, who commented: “The book could only be made by a man who hates women.” Then came the lawyers. In the end, Watson was obliged to pay $700 in New York for legal advice and some tweaking of the text before final publication.

The platitudes at the end of this chapter, which is alone worth the price of the book, might be considered sage if they were not queasily hilarious in the light of Watson’s literary adventures. “Be the first to tell a good story,” and “A wise editor matters more than a big advance.” Finally, he advises, “Don’t use autobiography to justify past actions or motivations.” Just so.

AVOID BORING PEOPLE by James D Watson
OUP £14.99 pp368

Times Recommends

• The 100 Best Books of the Decade
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• The conversation: James Ellroy