The Mathematician's Shiva

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"A comic, bittersweet tale of family evocative of The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Everything Is Illuminated Alexander 'Sasha' Karnokovitch and his family would like to mourn the passing of his mother, Rachela, with modesty and dignity. But Rachela, a famous Polish émigré mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin, is rumored to have solved the million-dollar, Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem. Rumor also has it that she spitefully took the solution to her grave. To Sasha's chagrin, a ragtag group of socially challenged mathematicians arrives in Madison and crashes the shiva, vowing to do whatever it takes to find the solution--even if it means prying up the floorboards for Rachela's notes. Written by a trained geophysicist, this hilarious and multi-layered debut novel brims with colorful characters and brilliantly captures humanity's drive not just to survive, but to solve the impossible."-- Provided by publisher.

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Math, Madison, Jewish Life, and Russia submitted by rkraut on July 14, 2019, 1:14pm The author flips back and forth between the current time and the protagonist's memoirs. It illuminates a lot about the world of Soviet authority, World War II, and math--as well as modern day universities and Jewish life. It's an enjoyable read, made even more so if you know Madison Wisconsin.