John Chant grew up swimming in a sea of science: his father an eccentric physics professor, his mother a former nuclear chemist, his older sister a pest and occasional Marxist, his 'brother' a robot, his pet a venomous lizard. In this darkly comic journey, positioned somewhere between science fiction, fabulation, and magical realism, John encounters dinosaurs, cosmic rays, alien astronauts, poets and atomic secrets, alcoholics and cancer victims, crackpots and Nobelists, brilliant, beguiling women, and an experimental chimpanzee. He goes to a circus, a nuclear lab, graduate school, an underground lair, and eventually a faculty position at a spectacularly dysfunctional university. Though it all John explores the fantastical mysteries of the universe, including the biggest mystery of all: love.
This book is about a brilliant and lonely child, given many gifts and many challenges. This book is about a love of science, even while recognizing that scientists are as imperfect as everyone else; maybe even more so. This book is bursting with ideas, wanting to share them with the world but afraid no one else wants to hear them. This book is about the search for truth and love. This book is a picaresque, wandering from one science-themed adventure to another. This book is about joy, and this is book is also about darkness, and this book is also about the absurdities of life. This book includes quantum mechanics, particle accelerators, chemical and medical experimentation, math, bullies, childhood crushes, literature, faculty meetings, families, terrible bosses, grief, failure, radioactivity, and kindness from unexpected places.
