Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain
by Michael Paterniti
The Dial Press, 2000
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
It could be the ultimate road trip/buddy movie - a man and the aging and slightly dotty pathologist who removed Albert Einstein's brain take it (floating in formaldehyde in a Tupperware container) on a cross-country jaunt. In reality, it's hard to know what's more unbelievable, that it really happened or that Hollywood hasn't latched onto the story yet.
The man was Michael Paterniti, who first told this expanded tale in a longish article in Harper's magazine. The aging pathologist was Dr. Thomas Harvey, a complex character who served as keeper of Einstein's brain in the decades following his death, in 1955.
The unlikely duo took to the road in Princeton, New Jersey, where Einstein spent a good portion of his later life. Among the stops on their way to California - Lawrence, Kansas, where they hobnobbed with counterculture icon, William Burroughs and San Jose, where Harvey gave a presentation about the brain to a group of high school students.
Not surprisingly, this is a road trip book that's more about Einstein, his brain, and Harvey - not to mention a tedious sub-plot about the author's romantic woes. But there is a road trip component, even so, enough that fans of that sort of yarn probably won't go away disappointed.
(Copyright © 2007, All Rights Reserved)
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