Somehow, against all odds, M. Ann Jacoby is able to make a story about a young man who sets out
to prove a math hypothesis strangely and utterly fascinating. While Theodore Mead Fegley, the
main character's, focus on proving the Reimann Hypothesis* may be over a majority of readers'
heads, the complex familial and interpersonal relationships between Mead and his family members,
professors and college classmates, will resonate with many who may begin reading this book as
a curiosity.
From the moment the academically talented Mead and his cousin build a maze to test the
behavior of mice, I was hooked. Perhaps readers who consider themselves nerds or who prefer
academics to sports will be able to identify with Mead. Any young person who has ever felt
socially inadequate, picked on or ostracized because of above average intelligence can relate
to the experiences in this book. Ms. Jacoby also does a more than adequate job of portraying
the miscommunications and misunderstandings that occur between generations and within
families, as she chronicles the adventures and misadventures of Mead and his cousin Percy's
trials in growing up. Overall, I found Life After Genius an entertaining and compelling
read and look forward to further efforts from Ms. Jacoby.
*According to Wikipedia,
the Reimann Hypothesis is an honest to goodness real life conjecture about the distribution of
the zeros of the Reimann zeta-function stating that all non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta
function have real part 1/2.