As she was doing research for her new book “Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal,” Mary Roach talked to a convicted murderer about his rectum for two hours.

“‘Are two hours enough?’ the murderer asked. And I said, ‘To talk to a murderer about his rectum? I think that’s enough time,’” Roach joked as she spoke about her interviewing process for “Gulp.”

Named as the United States’ funniest science writer, Roach, a nationally-acclaimed author, came to Syracuse University to speak on Tuesday about her latest book, which centers on the mechanisms of the human digestive system.

Roach spoke as part of SU’s University Lectures series in Hendricks Chapel. The lecture was a conversational discussion between Roach and SU biology professor Sandra Hewett, who asked the author several questions about her research process, intrigue and writing for the book.

Lately, Roach said, it has taken her two to three years to write it, mostly due to the fact that most of her field research occurs in the summer. Roach said she will be releasing her next book, “Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War,” on June 7, which will be “surprising, funny, fresh, weird and Roachable,” she said.

Roach, who earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wesleyan University, facetiously claimed she went there “for the parties.” Her career started off by working for a local news magazine, and her initial plans never involved writing books, as she said they were too overwhelming.

Naturally, Roach said, her inspiration for her quirky, science books grew out of conversations about dead bodies, which embedded the seed of her first — and best-selling — book, “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.”

Most of her work, and especially “Gulp,” she said, involve the secrets and not-so-talked-about subjects of science. These claims have earned her the name the “bottom feeder of nonfiction,” she said.

Roach said the inspiration behind “Gulp” was the taboo behind what is inside people’s bodies versus what’s on the outside. For example, she said saliva is constantly in our mouths, but we would all be disgusted if we would have to swallow a cup of our own spit, even if it was in our bodies in the first place.

She talked about a certain study which involved wine tasters describing red and white wine. When red food coloring was added to the white wine, the wine tasters immediately described the taste the same way they described the red wine.

Eddie Natal | Staff Photographer

“It proves we are visual creatures,” Roach said. “It’s almost like learning a language, when knowing individual senses and flavors, you experience it a different way.”

Hewett, the moderator, then asked Roach about her opinion on why humans try so hard to conceal “bodily eruptions” such as burping, when they are actually normal bodily functions. Roach said she believes it is due to how we perceive ourselves.

“We think of ourselves as a mind, not a locomotive gut,” she said.

She also claims that it has to due with our ignorance of our own mortality.

The most interesting part of her journey in writing “Gulp,” she said, was when she was writing a chapter about the rectum. She said it was a challenging subject, as there aren’t many people that specialize in the area.

She said she thought of smuggling and drug mules, so she contacted the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where she was directed to a prison. When she asked who she was going to speak to, the receptionist turned the monitor around and the word “murderer” was flashing in bright red.

Roach even asked the prisoner, who was serving life in prison, why he committed murder. He told her it was something dumb when he was a teenager, over some girl.

“And I look back at when I was a teenager,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, who is that?”

She added that he was actually a very nice person to talk to.

Her favorite part of writing her book, Roach said, was the people she met, who she said are so passionate in the things they study. She went to a lab in the Netherlands where she spoke to someone who specialized in saliva, or a “spit researcher” as she put it.

“There was someone who studied chewing, just chewing,” she said.

Roach said she found it fascinating how people could talk for hours about something that seemed so simple, but in reality, she said, everything about people’s bodies is very complicated.

She said it wasn’t very difficult to interview these people, as they probably found it appealing that someone found their passions interesting enough to display to a broader audience, and “since their spouses probably were tired of hearing about chewing,” she joked.

She ended the lecture by reading the last paragraph of her book, which reads: “It is, of course, possible that I seem strange. You may be thinking, ‘Wow, that Mary Roach has her head up her ass.’ To which I say: Only briefly, and with the utmost respect.”

Published on March 30, 2016 at 12:27 am

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