Synopses & Reviews
A comic, bittersweet tale of family evocative of
The Yiddish Policemen's Union and
Everything Is Illuminated Alexander Sasha” Karnokovitch and his family would like to mourn the passing of his mother, Rachela, with modesty and dignity. But Rachela, a famous Polish émigré mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin, is rumored to have solved the million-dollar, Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem. Rumor also has it that she spitefully took the solution to her grave. To Sasha's chagrin, a ragtag group of socially challenged mathematicians arrives in Madison and crashes the shiva, vowing to do whatever it takes to find the solution even if it means prying up the floorboards for Rachela's notes.
Written by a trained geophysicist, this hilarious and multi-layered debut novel brims with colorful characters and brilliantly captures humanity's drive not just to survive, but to solve the impossible.
Review
“Stuart Rojstaczer writes with enormous wit, style and empathy, and The Mathematician's Shiva is a big-hearted, rollickingly funny novel that's impossible to put down. A tremendous debut.” Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans
Review
“Here is the rare book that invites us into the romance of pure mathematics and the very human company of those who spend their decades unknotting the abstractions that describe our reality.” Lore Segal, author of Half the Kingdom
Review
“A brilliant and compelling family saga full of warmth, pathos, history, and humor, not to mention a cast of delightfully quirky characters, and a math lesson or two; all together, a winning equation! When Rojstaczer writes about mathematics, you'd think he was writing about poetry.” Jonathan Evison, New York Times bestselling author of West of Here and The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving
Review
“I loved this smart, funny, big-hearted novel. As hilarious and wise as early Philip Roth, The Mathematicians Shiva will delight and move you.” Steven Strogatz, author of The Joy of x
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING DEBUT FICTION
For readers of This Is Where I Leave You and Everything Is Illuminated, a brilliant and compelling family saga full of warmth, pathos, history and humor (Jonathan Evison, author of West of Here)
When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander Sasha Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish emigre has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics, and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. As a ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela s shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes or desperately scrutinizing the mutterings of her African Grey parrot Sasha must come to terms with his mother s outsized influence on his life.
Spanning decades and continents, from a crowded living room in Madison, Wisconsin, to the windswept beach on the Barents Sea where a young Rachela had her first mathematical breakthrough, The Mathematician s Shiva is an unexpectedly moving and uproariously funny novel that captures humanity s drive not just to survive, but to achieve the impossible."
Synopsis
When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander Sasha” Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish émigré has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics, and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. As a ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela's shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes or desperately scrutinizing the mutterings of her African Grey parrot Sasha must come to terms with his mothers outsized influence on his life.
Spanning decades and continents, from a crowded living room in Madison, Wisconsin, to the windswept beach on the Barent's Sea where a young Rachela had her first mathematical breakthrough, The Mathematician's Shiva is an unexpectedly moving and uproariously funny novel that captures humanity's drive not just to survive, but to achieve the impossible.
About the Author
Stuart Rojstaczer was raised in Milwaukee and has degrees from the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois, and Stanford. For many years, he was a professor of geophysics at Duke University. He lives in Northern California.