Debates about evolution between atheists and believers often yield more heat than light. Lauren Grodstein's smart, compassionate novel The Explanation for Everything offers a welcome respite for anyone seeking fresh paths over this well-trodden ground.
Andy Waite teaches evolutionary biology at a nondescript liberal arts college. A disciple of Princeton professor Hank Rosenblum, an aggressive atheist in the mold of Richard Dawkins, he teaches a course whimsically nicknamed "There Is No God," insisting on the first day of class that "Darwinian evolution explains everything about us. Everything." Outside the classroom, he's trying to raise two young daughters eight years after the death of his wife, killed in a collision with a drunk driver (her silent ghost is a character in the story).
Andy's angst snowballs when Lionel Shell, a fundamentalist student taking his course, introduces him to Melissa Potter, another believer, who persuades Andy to support her independent study on intelligent design, the theory litigated in the 2005 Pennsylvania court case that Grodstein has said inspired her novel. Andy finds himself attracted both to Melissa and to her spiritual life, "for having belief he wanted to borrow."
Grodstein, a self-professed atheist, is careful to give each of her characters a distinctive personality, and in doing so invests each with emotional depth and, above all, humanity. In exploring the conflict between faith and science in a story that's as much about the mysteries of the human heart as it is about religion or evolution, she shows that art can be a surer road to truth than even the most intellectually elegant ideology. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer