Sandy Glass' Obsession with Appearances in Allegra Goodman’s Intuition

In the days of black-and-white television and homemade apple pie, there existed a hallmark of perfection: the “all-American family”. This was composed of a mother who was always perfectly pressed and had dinner ready on time, a father with a good job who wore a suit to work every day, and two children who brought home perfect grades and were star athletes. This was the dream given to many Americans; a perfect family in the public eye, like the Cleaver family in the show “Leave It to Beaver”. This family had no marital disputes, no broken lamps, and no bills left unpaid, or so it seemed. Like these picture-perfect families, Allegra Goodman’s Sandy Glass wished to portray the perfect person, family, and lab, even when it was all collapsing in on itself.

Sandy Glass was not always the Sandy Glass that we read about in the novel. He used to be Sam Glazeroff and he changed it to forget his Eastern European Jewish heritage and to assimilate to the American way of life. Sandy’s view of the ideal man did not include reading the Torah and wearing a yarmulke or celebrating any aspect of his Judaic roots. Sandy throws a Christmas party instead of a Hanukkah party, where the only trace of Jewish tradition is the menorah that his wife places out for him. Even around his patients Sandy always tries to be the good guy. He never bears bad news and remains vague on issues of mortality when his patients ask so that he can continue to be golden in their eyes.

Sandy lives in a big house filled with the best that his money could buy. Money means status and comfort and respect to Sandy. Goodman tells us that “[a]ppearances were not superficial, but of substantive importance to him” (15). His name and everything that it stood for was ev...

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.... Sandy reinvents himself and puts out an air of superiority to those around him and he wants to control the futures of his daughters for appearances sake. At work, Glass edits and reedits articles, speeches, and grant proposals so that the Philpott’s research and workers appear more successful and better than they really are for funding purposes. Ideally, the public and private spheres would be completely separate. This way, there would be no lying or shame to try and cover up. Unfortunately, that is not usually the case; there is at least some overlap. Sandy Glass does the best he can to conceal the private from the public, even though there is that overlap, and he does it with skill and, most of the time, level headedly. Instead, Sandy puts on a disguise to show the public his version of the truth of his private life; the version that he looks the best in.