on the Rationally Speaking podcast. A lot of interesting discussion on the role of philosophy in modern science, and then during the last few minutes, novelist/philosopher Dr. Goldstein talks about why she likes my novel (she also volunteered to provide a blurb for the book jacket). I don’t know her. I admire her work, though, and it’s probably true that without it, I would have dismissed the idea that I could sell a novel about mathematicians (which includes some real math) to a major publisher. As I suspected all along, she doesn’t just possess outstanding literary skills; she also has excellent taste in novels!
Booth 449 at the ALA in Las Vegas, June 26 – July 1. Don’t know the date and time of the giveaway. I hope, of course, that librarians love the book. Details on all the giveaways at the ALA can be found here:
Thank you for such a super-sweet review!
June 23, 2014
High math, Eastern European history, and American culture converge in this hugely entertaining debut from geophysicist Rojstaczer. After Rachela Karnokovitch, a Polish émigré and University of Wisconsin professor regarded as her generation’s leading mathematician, dies from cancer in 2001, her middle-aged son, Alexander, a meteorologist also known as Sasha, is tasked with organizing the shiva for her. Though his family is challenging enough, Sasha’s real difficulties begin when dozens of his mother’s colleagues descend on Madison to pay their respects. Brilliant, awkward, lovable, and selfish, these superstar mathematicians prove to be less interested in mourning Rachela than in uncovering her secrets – particularly her rumored solution to one of math’s most famous enigmas, the Navier-Stokes problem. The ostensible mourners rip up floorboards, hold séances, and even read meaning into a 40-year-old parrot’s squawks, all the while discussing the charms and pitfalls of Eastern European identity and the perpetual shock of life in America. Counterbalancing their antics are flashbacks to Rachela’s childhood flight from Poland during World War II. These passages, presented as excerpts from her memoir, add depth to an already multilayered story of family, genius, and loss.
Those on NetGalley can request an advance digital copy of The Mathematician’s Shiva. Don’t know if this is the first pass (lots of typos), second pass (still quite a few typos) or third pass (no typos that I know of) version. I don’t have any say over whose requests get approved and don’t know how many digital copies are available. But they’re there! Enjoy!
“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
“I loved this smart, funny, big-hearted novel. As hilarious and wise as early Philip Roth, The Mathematician’s Shiva will delight and move you.”
–Steven Strogatz, author of The Joy of x
“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
“The Mathematician’s Shiva is 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
I’ll be happy to be in NYC. If you’re a reviewer, bookstore owner, etc. who wants an ARC and runs into me at BEA, just give me your business card and I’ll make sure Lindsay Prevette, my publicist at Penguin, sends you one (get me early, and I might have one in my bag). Or you can contact Lindsay directly. Want to say hello at BEA? Email me.
of all the drafts and edits of The Mathematician’s Shiva. They’re ready for the next book.
for the Fall. Out of I don’t know how many fiction titles (a lot), this book is it. When I started writing Math Shiva in the Los Altos and Mountain View libraries, I wasn’t thinking about anything more than a university press picking it up. I had a flow chart for the novel, no agent, and no track record. But now this. Amazing. Truly.
My name is in orange on the binding. Like Halloween. For me, this is all treat.
Scanned and sent to meet deadline. 273 other pages seem to be more or less perfect as is. Hoorah! Soon to be (well in five months, to be precise) at a bookstore near you. I’ll get one more peek, but just a peek, before it gets printed.
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