This week the Bookworm Beat talks with American non-fiction writer David Plotz author of ?The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank?. The book chronicles the bizarre, somewhat disastrous history of one of America?s first sperm banks, and ultimately the birth of the fertility industry in America.

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Washington D.C. author David Plotz told the Bookworm Beat that today?s burgeoning fertility industry would like to forget that the Nobel Prize Sperm bank ever existed.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s bank founder Robert Graham promised customers, mainly single mothers and couples who were having trouble conceiving, the sperm of geniuses.

Mr. Graham felt the problem with the world was that there weren?t enough smart people in it. His view of the perfect people tended to be blond and blue eyed and of German origin. He created this sperm bank in an attempt to alleviate the problem as he saw it. Hundreds of women desperate to have children became clients of the bank. What they did not know was that the only three actual Nobel prize winners who agreed to help, did not actually produce any offspring, because they were elderly.

The bank did, however, have one prolific donor who was the son of a Nobel prize winner. Most of the other donors were just ordinary men, some a little less than ordinary.

?The sperm banks that exist today very much want to distance themselves from the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank,? said Mr. Plotz. ?They think it is an embarrassment to the field. They liked the book and enjoyed it, but they want to say it is just a small obscure chapter in sperm banking history. I would argue it has everything to do with why they are the way they are, but they don?t chose to see it that way.?

The Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, for example, was one of the first banks to give their clients extensive donor catalogues. The catalogues described the characters of the donors and listed their various academic and athletic achievements.

?Today there are about half a dozen really big sperm banks,? said Mr. Plotz. ?They are incredibly well run and really careful about their donors, because they are afraid of being sued, and they are in a competitive market.?

Unfortunately, during the Nobel Prize sperm bank?s day, the backgrounds of donors and sometimes even recipients was not carefully verified or checked.

Mr. Plotz spent three years tracking down a handful of donors and children of the bank, and found some surprises.

?I wanted to keep the book narrowly focused on a couple of stories,? said Mr. Plotz. ?The two stories I focused on remain the ones I think are the most compelling. One story involved the reunion of a young girl with her biological father, known as ?Donor White?. This union was successful, but turned out to be the exception, rather than the rule.

?Most of the guys who donated were just college kids doing it for money. They didn?t really think of the consequences of donating. They weren?t doing it to become fathers. When they are donating, they don?t know who the mother is. It is just a mechanical biological act, so it is less likely that you would expect a sperm donor to feel a connection to their resulting offspring.?

Nevertheless, some donors and offspring do want to be reunited with each other. In some countries donor and child registration books are becoming common, just as they are for adopted children. If the donor is interested in being contacted he puts his name in the register, and the child does the same if they are interested in being contacted.

Mr. Plotz and his wife already have a child of their own, but he said, if they had had trouble producing one he isn?t sure they would have gone to a sperm bank.

?It is a very hard family dynamic for the surrogate father,? he said. ?It puts a lot of pressure on the father. You either have to pretend you are the biological father ? or you don?t pretend.?

He said because the mother actually gives birth to the baby and shares half of its genes, it creates a strange triad. The mother and child have a biological connection, but the mother?s husband does not. Some fathers never manage to bridge the biological divide.

In terms of whether Mr. Plotz and his wife would ever use a sperm bank, he said he is glad he never had to make that choice.

?One of the nice things about fertility techniques is that it is easier for men to have their own biological children, but it is still a bit harder for women,? he said. ?There are new techniques even for men who were thought to be be absolutely infertile.?

Despite the mis-marketing of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, many of its resulting children have done well in life, even if their biological fathers weren?t geniuses.

?In terms of the nature verses nurture debate, I am not on either side,? said Mr. Plotz. ?You?d have to be a moron to deny that genes don?t have a huge role in shaping who we are, but to me the kids I came across when writing the book are a tribute to nurture.?

He thought that one of the reasons many of the children turned out well, was because their mothers were so determined that they would.

?I think they would have raised smart kids no matter what,? he said. ?This shows a lot more about nurture.?

Although there were definite racist undertones in the way that the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank was organised, the picture for today?s sperm banks is better, although not perfect.

?Basically, sperm banks are like all consumer businesses, they respond to the market,? said Mr. Plotz. ?They have black and Latino customers, but they have a harder time getting donors, particularly black donors.?

He said, for example, at one large sperm bank 150 donors might be white, 10 Asian, 10 Hispanic and 10 black.

?So the choice is much narrower if you are a black woman,? he said. ?You are much more limited in your choices.?

Find ?The Genius Factory? at the Bermuda National Library. To contact the Bookworm Beat email: bookwormbeat1hotmail.com .