Benjamin Taylor's THE BOOK OF GETTING EVEN reviewed in Booklist

The Book of Getting Even.
Taylor, Benjamin (author).

May 2008. 176p. Steerforth, hardcover, $23.95 (9781586421434).
REVIEW. First published March 15, 2008 (Booklist).

Even as a teenager, mathematics prodigy Gabriel Geismar finds ways to cope with life; he distracts himself from what is base (such as seeking sex in a men’s bathhouse) by thinking of numbers, and he finds a new family after a hateful standoff with his rabbi father. As a 16-year-old freshman at Swarthmore in 1970, Gabriel is approached by fraternal twins Danny and Marghie Hundert; both fall in love with him, and he reciprocates these feelings physically with Danny. An unexpected bonus is the twins’ father, the renowned physicist Dr. Gregor Hundert, who, along with his wife, envelopes Gabriel in familial love, then guides his budding career. Tragedy ensues, as the Vietnam War causes Danny to follow his principles to extremes, while his father suffers dementia. Losses aside, Gabriel—with a doctorate and associate professorship in astrophysics—finds solace in his concept of the universe, from multiple galaxies to the smallest insect. A beautifully written and keenly intelligent novel, set in a context of cosmology, this is in turn humorous, almost unbearably moving, and comforting, as it points the way to Gabriel’s “perfect freedom.” — Michele Leber

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