Synopses & Reviews
NATHAN NELSON IS THE AVERAGE SON OF A GENIUS. His father, a physicist of small renown, has prodded him toward greatness from an early age -- enrolling him in whiz kid summer camps, taking him to the icy tundra of Canada to track a solar eclipse, and teaching him college algebra. But despite Samuel Nelson's efforts, Nathan remains ordinary.
Then, in the summer of 1987, everything changes. While visiting his small-town grandfather in Michigan, Nathan is involved in a terrible accident. After a brief clinical death -- which he later recalls as a lackluster affair lasting less than the length of a Top 40 pop song -- he falls into a coma. When he awakens, Nathan finds that everyday life is radically different. His perceptions of sight, sound, and memory have been irrevocably changed. The doctors and his parents fear permanent brain damage. But the truth of his condition is more unexpected and leads to a renewed chance for Nathan to find his place in the world.
Thinking that his son's altered brain is worthy of serious inquiry, Samuel arranges for Nathan to attend the Brook-Mills Institute, a Midwestern research center where savants, prodigies, and neurological misfits are studied and their specialties applied. Immersed in this strange atmosphere -- where an autistic boy can tell you what day Christmas falls on in 3026 but can't tie his shoelaces, where a medical intuitive can diagnose cancer during a long-distance phone call with a patient -- Nathan begins to unravel the mysteries of his new mind. He also tries to make peace with the crushing weight of his father's expectations.
The Beautiful Miscellaneous is an extraordinary follow-up to Dominic Smith's critically acclaimed debut, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. This dazzling new novel explores the fault lines that can cause a family to drift apart and the unexpected events that can pull them back together.
Review
"With an exquisite ear not just for language but for emotional truth as well, Dominic Smith has written an ambitious and strikingly unusual tale about what it's like to grow up in the shadow of a brilliant father and under the force of his expectations. I finished this book in awe of Smith's imagination -- and of his enormous heart." -- Julia Glass, author of Three Junes and The Whole World Over
Review
"The Beautiful Miscellaneous is one of the most original coming-of-age stories I've read in a long time. It's about gawkiness, particle physics, bereavement, and memory, but it's also a dazzling inquiry into a universe that is at once breathtakingly elegant and irrevocably mundane. Anomalies, graces, the tedium of grief -- it's all here, cast in Dominic Smith's smooth, dazzling prose." -- Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collector and About Grace
Review
"The gifts of knowledge that failure brings is the subject of this deft and generous novel about fathers and sons. The phenomenon of love still being, pretty much, the most extraordinary phenomenon of them all, withstanding the ambitions of lesser dreams." -- Joy Williams, author of Honored Guest and The Quick and the Dead
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, a dazzling new novel explores the fault lines that can cause a family to drift apart and the unexpected events that can pull them back together.
Nathan Nelson is the average son of a genius. His father, a physicist of small renown, has prodded him toward greatness from an early age--enrolling him in whiz kid summer camps, taking him to the icy tundra of Canada to track a solar eclipse, and teaching him college algebra. But despite Samuel Nelson's efforts, Nathan remains ordinary.
Then, in the summer of 1987, everything changes. While visiting his small-town grandfather in Michigan, Nathan is involved in a terrible accident. After a brief clinical death -- which he later recalls as a lackluster affair lasting less than the length of a Top 40 pop song--he falls into a coma. When he awakens, Nathan finds that everyday life is radically different. His perceptions of sight, sound, and memory have been irrevocably changed. The doctors and his parents fear permanent brain damage. But the truth of his condition is more unexpected and leads to a renewed chance for Nathan to find his place in the world.
Thinking that his son's altered brain is worthy of serious inquiry, Samuel arranges for Nathan to attend the Brook-Mills Institute, a Midwestern research center where savants, prodigies, and neurological misfits are studied and their specialties applied. Immersed in this strange atmosphere -- where an autistic boy can tell you what day Christmas falls on in 3026 but can't tie his shoelaces, where a medical intuitive can diagnose cancer during a long-distance phone call with a patient--Nathan begins to unravel the mysteries of his new mind, and finally make peace with the crushing weight of his father's expectations.
About the Author
Dominic Smith grew up in Sydney, Australia and now lives in Austin, Texas. He holds an MFA in writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. His short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including
The Atlantic Monthly.
His awards include the Dobie Paisano Fellowship from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize, and the Gulf Coast Fiction Prize. In 2006, his debut novel The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre received the Steven Turner Prize for First Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters.
Reading Group Guide
Introduction At seventeen, Nathan Nelson is the mildly gifted son of a genius. His father, Dr. Samuel Nelson, is a particle physicist whose three passions in life are quarks, jazz, and uncovering Nathan's prodigious talents. Consequently, Nathan has spent his formative years in whiz-kid summer camps, taking trips to particle accelerators, and plotting simultaneous equations to the off-kilter riffs of Thelonious Monk. An only child, Nathan is painfully aware that he "swims like a tadpole in the deepest place of the bell curve" and slouches through puberty looking for an escape from his parents' lofty dream.
Everything changes when Nathan is involved in a terrible accident. After a brief clinical death and a two-week coma, he awakens to find that his perceptions of sight, sound, and memory have been irrevocably changed. The doctors and his parents fear permanent brain damage, but the truth of his condition is much more unexpected and leads to a renewed chance for Nathan to find his place in the world.
Nathans father arranges for him to attend the Brook-Mills Institutea Midwestern research center where savants, prodigies, and neurological misfits are studied and their "talents" applied. Immersed in this strange atmospherewhere an autistic boy can tell you what day Christmas falls on in 3026 but can't tie his shoelaces, where a medical intuitive can diagnose cancer during a long-distance phone call with a patientNathan begins to unravel the mysteries of his new mind and tries to make peace with the crushing weight of his father's expectations.
Reading Group Guide for The Beautiful Miscellaneous
Questions and Topics for Discussion:
1. Nathan's parents seem to live apart from both outsiders and each other. Discuss Nathan's relationship to his parents. How are they connected to and disconnected from one another? Why do you think they keep a distance between themselves and people outside the family?
2. After the accident Nathan's father says, "This was not supposed to happen." (p. 65) What role does fate play in this novel? Was the accident "supposed" to happen?
3. Nathan's father says that Nathan's grandfather "thinks God's an old guy with a beard and an ulcer and a scoreboard." (p. 71) Nathan's father believes in a "unified field." (p. 70). What are Nathan's beliefs about God? Do his convictions change through the course of the book? How?
4. Synesthesia, Nathan's condition, is described as a blending of the senses. How does the author use sensory details in his writing to convey this condition?
5. Mozart, perhaps the most famous historical child prodigy, is mentioned early in the book as part of an experiment on rats. (p. 44) Identify and discuss the skills of the other prodigies at the Brooks-Mills Institute. Who is the most talented? Who is the most driven to use his or her talents? Why?
6. Toby asks Nathan what he is "in for," (p. 112) referring to the Brooks-Mills Institute as if it was a jail. Is the Institute a kind of prison? If so, for which students? What benefits do they get from being at the Institute?
7. Nathan refers to silence as the "sound of not remembering." (p. 131) What does he mean by this? Soon after, Dr. Gillman says, "Forgetting is when things slip [out]. Not remembering is when you filter things out." (p. 132) Do you think he is right? Why or why not?
8. Dr. Gillman says to Nathan that knowledge is pointless unless you do something with it. Nathan asks in return, "Why does information have to be useful? Does music need to be useful?" (p. 133) Discuss their arguments. Who do you agree with?
9. Generally, Whit is interested in the world on a planetary scale while Nathan's father focuses on particle and subatomic science. Where do Nathan's interests fall in the scope of the universe?
10. Collision, whether it be particles, cars, or people arguing, plays a large role in the book. Which of the many sudden impacts, either physical or emotional, are the most important in the novel?
11. Toward the end of the story the author includes letters from Nathan to his father. Why? What do these letters reveal about Nathan that the author might not have been able to convey in another style of writing? How do these letters connect, compare, and contrast to Nathan's father letter to God?
12. At many times in the book Nathan is clearly the central character. His father, however, casts a long shadow over Nathan's life and the course of the novel. Who is the most powerful driving force of the action in the book?
13. What is the significance of Nathan's father's watch? What role does time play in the story?
14. Clyde Kaplansky says, "Memory can be the way back or the way forward." What does he mean by this? Do you think he is right? Why or why not?
15. What does Nathan learn after seeing Darius/Taro?
16. What is the meaning of the title The Beautiful Miscellaneous? Discuss the arc of the storyline. What is the central conflict? What is the rising action? What is the climax? Does it have one?
Tips to Enhance Your Reading Group
1. The Stanford Linear Accelerator is one of the world's leading research laboratories. Established in 1962 at Stanford University in Menlo Park, California, whose mission is to design, construct and operate state-of-the-art electron accelerators and related experimental facilities for use in high-energy physics and synchrotron radiation research. Learn more about the center at: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
2. The Davidson Institute at the University of Nevada (http://www.ditd.org/) is an example of a nonprofit school for America's gifted children. To learn more about how education for the gifted functions on a state by state basis visit: http://www.gt-cybersource.org/StatePolicy.aspx?NavID=4_0
3. Each year the USA Memory Championships are held. To learn more about the event or how to participate visit: http://usamemorychampionship.com/