In his mesmerizing A Doubter's Almanac, Ethan Canin (America America) uses the gifts of mathematical genius, passed down from one generation to the next, as a window into a father-son story.
As a boy growing up in a remote part of Northern Michigan, Milo Andret gave little thought to his mathematical gifts. It is the 1960s, and the pleasures around him--drugs, drinking, love--exert their appeal. He loses the love of his life to a rival who uses his own mathematical skills to land a lucrative job on Wall Street. Milo takes a position at Princeton, but he is an uncompromising and occasionally injudicious man, whose worsening alcoholism results in his eventual dismissal. He returns to the Midwest to teach at a small, third-tier college, with his wife, Helena, and children Paulette and Hans in tow.
Then the novel shifts perspective and becomes Hans's. He and Paulette have inherited their father's genius, but unlike Milo, Hans uses his talents on Wall Street and becomes impossibly wealthy. Like his father, he has struggled with addiction. After a leave of absence to care for his ailing father, he is forced out of his job and becomes a teacher in a small upstate town. Hans's preoccupation now is to know his father, to understand their love for each other, despite their inability to express it.
Canin's writing is lucid and beautiful, with moments of high lyricism punctuating the storytelling. Mathematical logic becomes as intriguing as academic politics. Rich with thought-provoking themes, A Doubter's Almanac realizes its considerable ambitions. --Jeanette Zwart, freelance writer and reviewer