First published 2001
Michael Paterniti embarks on an extraordinary cross-country journey from New Jersey to California. His traveling companion is Thomas Harvey, an elderly pathologist who removed Albert Einstein's brain during the physicist's autopsy forty years earlier and simply took it home. The brain now rides in a Tupperware container filled with formaldehyde, stored in the trunk of their Buick Skylark. Their destination is Einstein's granddaughter Evelyn, who waits in bewilderment for their arrival on this cold February day. As the miles pass, Paterniti observes the American landscape through the lens of this bizarre pilgrimage. The presence of Einstein's preserved mind transforms an ordinary road trip into something far stranger. Harvey carries decades of secrets about his impulsive decision to steal one of history's most famous brains. The journey becomes a meditation on genius, mortality, and the peculiar ways Americans pursue and preserve greatness. This odd trio of two living men and one dead brain creates an unlikely window into the heart of the American dream.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, biography-memoir, road-trip
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, road-trip
Setting: California, New Jersey
Period: 20th-century
288 pages · Hardcover · RBA Libros