This well researched historical novel by an American author paints Albert Einstein in a brilliant but very eccentric and unflattering light. As a human being in relation to his equally brilliant first wife, Mileva Maric and his first daughter Lieseril, whom he never met in the two years she lived, he was not only inattentive but at times cruel and unfaithful, carrying on an affair with Elsa who became his second wife. His failure to have her name even mentioned on the famous 2005 special relativity papers reflects the deep-seated misogyny of the times, as she did most of the mathematics, and Albert secretly ensured that her contribution was not acknowledged. In many ways this is like the omission of Rosalind Franklin on Watson and Crick’s The Double Helix more than 50 years later. Marie Benedict also wrote about that in Her Hidden Genius.
Mileva’s life is covered from growing up as an eccentric lonely Serbian girl, with a limp, obsessed with physics to her divorce in 1914, with a epilogue reflection on her life in 1948, all written in the first person singular.
The writing flows smoothly reflecting abundant self-doubt, anger and disappointment over his many slights. There is a lot of imagined conversation.
There may well be be exaggerated emphasis on Albert Einstein’s many faults but I really enjoyed this book. I look forward to discussing it at next month’s book club.
5/5
Thanks, William’s Court Book Club 2.
The Passionate Reader 