The Genius of the World

by Alice Lichtenstein

Ira Stein is a brilliant, troubled boy who repudiated everything his grandfather stood for and turned to Buddha. Abby Stein, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was present as they detonated the first atomic bomb. Twenty-six years later he visits his grandson, dying of cancer at the age of twenty-one. He is incensed by Ira's inner calm and acceptance. Ira's sister Phoebe is the fulcrum on which these two poles of the family teeter back and forth. The Genius of the World is a sensitive and spiritual novel about bridging the gap between faith and reason. " The Genius of the World is a shattering story told with astonishing insight and redemptive clarity. This bold novel is a journey of the body and the spirit."-Melanie Rae Thon "This is a compassionate and beautifully written first novel. It is a fine and sensitive portrait of an idiosyncratic family confronting the ironies and inevitabilities of fate."-Tony Eprile An Phoebe, 1976 1. This is my everyone everywhere is lying almost all the time. I am anyway. Example. Wrote to Ira today. Told him I was happy. Told him I was beginning to see the Buddha nature, the good, in everyone and this was making me feel good. Bull shit. I'm not seeing the Buddha nature. I'm seeing everyone's alive and oblivious to the privilege. I see that they're alive and he's going to die. I can't forgive all these blind people; can't forgive Ira for going about so calmly as if it's all a lie. I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE. That's what I should've written. No one here to talk to. No one. Joanne tries, but I can't stand her tucked up in her desk chair like a cat, elbows on the desk and those reading glasses with the narrow rectangles reducing me in their lenses. Extending her forearms, she clasps her hands, leans her elbows on her propped thighs and peers at me over the rims. I swear it's some shrink trick she learned from her father. So obvious, so fake. She's only nineteen. "How is your brother?" she asks in that whispery, throaty voice she's been cultivating all semester ("People tell me I sound like Greta Garbo," she says. In your dreams.) That's my cue to cry, I know. To eject myself into her waiting arms, pay her her due. I stay put. N

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Alice Lichtenstein graduated from Brown University and received her MFA from Boston University. She has received a New York Foundation of the Arts Grant in Fiction, the Barbara Demming Memorial Award for Fiction and has twice been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony.

Alice’s new novel, THE CRIME OF BEING, forthcoming from Upper Hand Press, November 2019, has already been called "A brilliant, riveting, and emotionally charged story about the crime of black life." (Jallicia Jolly, UM)

Her first novel, THE GENIUS OF THE WORLD (Zoland Books, 2000), recieved favorable reviews, most notably in The New York Times Book Review and on National Public Radio.

PEOPLE Magazine called Alice's second novel, LOST, (Scribner, 2010), "a great read" and NPR said, "LOST is a novel that delivers much reading pleasure." LOST was a long-list Finalist for the2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Lichtenstein’s short stories have appeared in several literary journals. Most recently, Revision, in Narrative Magazine (Fall 2018); Dead Friends in Post Road (Winter, 2010) and White Ladies in Short Story (Spring, 2010). These stories were nominated for Pushcart Prize Awards.

Alice lives in Oneonta, New York, where she teaches fiction-writing at Hartwick College, and in Surry, Maine.

Reviews

[Adele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alice Lichtenstein is married to a good friend and colleague of mine and I received her book as a hostess gift several years ago when we hosted a party. I did not expect to enjoy this one so much. What a lovely, touching work this is. At the very top of my lists of alltime favorites. I understand she has just sold another. We'll have to wait for that one.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this beautifully written novel about family stress and religious differences.