Summary and Reviews of A Doubter's Almanac by Ethan Canin

A Doubter's Almanac by Ethan Canin

A Doubter's Almanac

by Ethan Canin
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  • First Published:
  • Feb 16, 2016, 576 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2016, 592 pages
  • Reviewed by BookBrowse Book Reviewed by:
    Donna Chavez
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About This Book

Book Summary

In this mesmerizing novel, Ethan Canin, the New York Times bestselling author of America America and other acclaimed works of fiction, explores the nature of genius, jealousy, ambition, and love in several generations of a gifted family.

Milo Andret is born with an unusual mind. A lonely child growing up in the woods of northern Michigan in the 1950s, Milo gives little thought to his talent, and not until his acceptance at U.C. Berkeley does he realize the extent, and the risks, of his singular gifts. California in the seventies is an initiation and a seduction, opening Milo's eyes to the allure of both ambition and indulgence. The research he begins there will make him a legend; the woman, and the rival, he meets there will haunt him always. For Milo's brilliance is inextricably linked to a dark side that ultimately threatens to unravel his work, his son and daughter, and his life.

Moving from California to Princeton to the Midwest and to New York, A Doubter's Almanac explores Milo's complex legacy for the next generations in his family. Spanning several decades of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, A Doubter's Almanac is a suspenseful, surprising, and deeply moving novel, written in stunning prose and with superb storytelling magic.

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Reviews

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What sets Canin’s story apart from other dysfunctional family novels is the awesome writing, the mid-plot switch of narrator augmented by the juxtaposition of Milo’s superhuman intelligence and his addiction. It is indicative of Canin’s own genius that he makes all that – plus mathematics references that sent me to Google more than once – work superbly...continued

Full Review (638 words)

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(Reviewed by Donna Chavez).

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Beyond the Book



The Challenges of Genius

In A Doubter's Almanac, Hans Andret, a mathematical genius, checks into a rehab facility, seeking treatment for his addiction. In a counseling session, his therapist, Matthew, asks Hans why he suddenly brought his addiction out in the open and suggests that Hans wished to be caught.

Cesare LombrosoWhen Hans protests that such a notion would be ludicrous, Matthew says: "Genius is a degenerative psychosis…belonging to the group of moral insanity." He then explains this is a quote from: "Cesare Lombroso. A criminologist. He died a hundred years ago, but now psychologists are starting to agree with him. Fewer dopamine receptors or something like that. Psychosis and inventiveness seem to run along a kind of continuum."

Indeed, Lombroso did write ...

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