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I came across this book at a Half Price Books warehouse sale this summer (all you could cram in a box for $10) and was hooked in by the concept: the author undertook a cross-country road trip chauffeuring (most of) Albert Einstein's brain, and its possessor, Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who performed Einstein's autopsy, to reunite (most of) the brain with Albert's granddaughter in California. The author, a buff of "Einstein's brain" lore, was able to locate Dr. Harvey and the brain through a rather stunning coincidence, and the urban legends that Einstein's brain was missing and some guy had it in his garage turned out to be close to the truth.
The book is an interesting combination of research journalism, travelogue, and personal memoir. Paterniti does a good job of interweaving Einstein's biography and the historical circumstances and controversy behind the brain's "abduction" with the present-day events of the book. He paints a vivid portrait of the eccentric Dr. Harvey, whose career and life stalled out soon after he took possession of the brain, ostensibly for studies which never reached full fruition. Paterniti also candidly describes the sometimes strained cross-generational relationship that developed between the two men in the front of their rented Buick, as the chunks of Einstein's brain sloshed in their Tupperware containers in the trunk. There are some memorable events along their voyage, including a bizarre visit (could there be any other kind?) with Dr. Harvey's former neighbor William S. Burroughs, and a weird encounter with some Scientologists in a restaurant parking lot. There's also a very interesting section which cuts away to the author's later visit to Japan to meet a scientist who regards Einstein's brain as a religious relic and wants to build an Einstein museum there.
The element which interested me least in the book was the author's own autobiographical tangents, mostly about his strained relationship with his girlfriend. I realize that these elements have their contextual purpose story-wise, but I just didn't find them very interesting. Also, his writing style gets pretty overbaked (drug pun intended) in some places, with moonchild phrases like "For in some recurrence, in some light wave, in some shimmer of time, we are out there now, and forever, existing..." Um, what? Earth to author guy. Fortunately these flights of fancy are few in number. Really, this is a story that writes itself, and the book still manages to be a fascinating and compelling read despite the unneeded embellishments. (mike.08.05)
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