While neuroscientist George Paxinos was planning a trip to Spain, a friend suggested he visit Santiago de Compostela, where the bones of St. James are buried. “I thought of extracting some DNA to see what the guy looked like,” Paxinos says. “Then, I thought, why not someone far greater?”
Twenty-one years later, Paxinos is publishing the novel sparked in that moment. A River Divided is the story of a scientist who uses Christ’s remains to create two clones who then grow up on opposite sides of the planet, with diametrically opposed worldviews. The book explores the question of whether humans can exist in harmony with nature—and whether our brains are capable of addressing the climate crisis.
“The question the novel attempts to answer is, what would someone with the genetic endowment of Christ do if he were born today?” says Paxinos, a professor of medical sciences at Neuroscience Research Australia and the University of New South Wales, Sydney. “Would he join Wall Street or street protests?”
It’s an extremely compelling premise, but plenty of people come up with cool novel ideas, and Paxinos is a busy man. He is a world-renowned scientist who has identified and named more brain areas than anyone in history. He has published 57 books. His first, The Rat Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates, is the most-cited neuroscience publication of all time. His Atlas of the Human Brain received awards from the Association of American Publishers and the British Medical Association. Paxinos is also an environmental activist who has worked to protect trees and bring light rail to Sydney.
With such a strong scientific platform and a history of direct action, why write a novel to address the climate change issue? “Because nothing else has worked,” Paxinos says. “It was failure leading to fiction. I reasoned there might be a better outcome if I worked upstream from behavior, at attitude change; that is, instead of trying to block someone from cutting a forest, to convince them to protect it. A novel can present to the public a balanced mix of romance and suspense with knowledge from neuroscience and environmental science that may foster a pro-environmental attitude.”
He explains that the human mind is ill-equipped to solve the environmental crisis. Had the brain been physically smaller, it would not have been able to support the science and technology that today threaten existence. If, on the other hand, the brain had been larger, it might have understood the problem, even solved it. His conclusion is that the brain is not in the Goldilocks zone.
In A River Divided, the twins’ paths cross when they find themselves on opposite sides of an almighty battle over the last great rainforest, the Amazon. The story resembles an ancient tragedy that ends with hope, at least for the two surviving protagonists. “That identical twins raised apart can end up as principal antagonists in the battle of the Amazon illustrates the importance of environment in the formation of character and points to education as a way to construct a sustainable society,” Paxinos says.
During the two decades he spent writing the book, Paxinos traveled around the world, immersing himself in many different environments, including Jerusalem, the Vatican, the Amazon, and Buenos Aires. “The travel was the easy part, with learning to tango in Buenos Aires being the most enjoyable,” he says. “I wanted the book to have authenticity in the description of cultures and landscapes.”
The writing part was tougher, but Paxinos says he never lost interest in the book because he could see the way it was improving. With each draft, he drew closer to completing this gripping tale that uses the power of empathy and conversation to connect readers with humanity’s most pressing problem.
One day, while writing in a café, he bumped into a friend who asked how the book was going. He told her he’d been at it for 21 years and still wasn’t finished. She said her cousin’s novel was published posthumously. Paxinos recalls saying to her, “You are giving me hope.”
