Do the Math: A Novel of the Inevitable
by Philip Persinger
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Book Summary Information
Author: Philip PersingerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-14
ISBN: 0595469884
Number of pages: 266
Publisher: IUniverse
Book Reviews of Do the Math: A Novel of the Inevitable
Book Review: Math and romance have never been more fun.
Summary: 4 Stars
This begins with a witty Acknowledgment: "Thanks to the Mater (mother) for her great proofreading and helping make sure that nothing in the content would displease Queen Victoria.... Finally, thanks to Emily Nomer, whose arbitrary and capricious comments made the entire writing process odious and hateful." Then the book gets even better. Its narrator is sort of a loser that becomes a graduate intern for a college math professor whose wife is a celebrated (but agoraphobic) romance novel writer. Unfortunately she has had writer's block for the past twenty years and had hired someone to author all her books after the first one. He has just quit.
Her husband is convinced that as a mathematician he and his assistant (who always seems to fall asleep and wake up to eavesdrop on decisive conversations) can eek out a formula for the romance genre. He begins by listing innumerable plot scenarios including this one: "A self-effacing academic type, totally married and honorable, stumbles out of a dark terminal into the brightness of a clear day in March and almost walks in front of a taxi at the airport, except that he is grabbed by the nape of the neck and is saved by the love of his life, who he lost twenty-seven years earlier." The young intern concludes this somehow matches the appearance of an attractive blonde writer the wife has just hired despite her husband's elaborate efforts to prevent that from happening.
"Do the Math" is in the vein of John Kennedy O'Toole's great "A Confederacy of Dunces." It is funny, clever and original in a way that pulls the reader into its farcical, hugely entertaining storyline. I'm not sure who this will appeal to (my guess, neither math majors nor readers of romance novels), but I loved every page. There are some great lines: One of her books is "Tomorrow is Only a Day Away." Her husband is described in an article as, "...an expert at logic and probability, who according to associates `can't tell the difference between a candlelit supper and a power failure.'" And then there's one of the narrator's friends who, at a hilarious bachelor party for a fellow math geek, says of their mutual acquaintance, "Leopold's idea of group sex is doing it with another person."
I honestly didn't care where this book was going or if it would take forever to get there. Phillip Persinger you are a genius. Math and romance have never been more fun.
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