What an inspired idea for a story - to trace the life of the illegitimate daughter who was given away in 1902 by the young Einstein, bent on respectability and professional success - and Mrs Einstein begins with a bang as, blessed with an effortless gift for mathematics, the young heroine transcends her surroundings on a remote farm in the depths of muddy Mitteleuropa and sets out to gain revenge on her famous, oblivious father by beating him to the theory of relativity. To carry off a plot like this you need to be able for the physics, and - to the untutored eye, at least - McGrail makes an impressive fist of it. Towards the end of the book the narrative splinters and fragments as the science becomes more complex and life is complicated by war - it's less comfortable for the reader, but is itself a metaphor for the way in which atomic theory has changed our understanding of the world. A brave and original novel.
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