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Oct 20, 2008 Serena rated it really liked it

Life After Genius by M. Ann Jacoby is a book that examines one young genius' struggle to find himself and his place in his own family and society.

Theodore Mead Fegley's father runs a furniture store and funeral home with his brother Martin, while his mother's main goal in life is to push her son to achieve as much as possible and not squander his intelligence. The pressure mounts for Mead as he speeds through his elementary and high school years, reaching the University of Chicago at age 15.

The Life After Genius by M. Ann Jacoby is a book that examines one young genius' struggle to find himself and his place in his own family and society.

Theodore Mead Fegley's father runs a furniture store and funeral home with his brother Martin, while his mother's main goal in life is to push her son to achieve as much as possible and not squander his intelligence. The pressure mounts for Mead as he speeds through his elementary and high school years, reaching the University of Chicago at age 15.

The narrative easily shifts from the present to the past, and the chapter breaks make it easier to keep the timeline in perspective with details about what period in Mead's life is witnessed and what location he is in. Mead is a young teen thrust into academic life with peers who are much older and experienced. Mead's life takes a stark turn when he meets Herman Weinstein, a fellow mathematics student at the university. Mead's pushed aside as his faculty advisor chooses Weinstein over Mead after the professor is offered a department head position. Mead is angered by the turn of events, but only until he finds a new mentor, Dr. Alexander. Mead throws himself into the Riemann Hypothesis, and he hopes to either prove or disprove the hypothesis, which has been debated for more than 100 years.

Jacoby easily weaves in events from Mead's past into his present and how those events shape Mead and his actions at the university. Herman insinuates himself into Mead's life, and tensions rise until Mead finds himself running home to rural Illinois before graduation, his major mathematical presentation, and his valedictorian speech.

While math problems make me cringe, this story brought me back with the discussions of matrices--math I actually understood at one point--but Jacoby does a great job of including this information without burdening or boring the reader. As Mead's life unfolds and the mystery grows more intense, the pages flow quickly as the reader grows more anxious to find out why Mead left the university. This novel is dubbed as an academic thriller, but it is more like a coming of age story. Mead finds himself, what's important to him, and how to cope with his reality. ...more

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Dec 21, 2009 Carol added it

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