A Theory Of All Things

by Peggy Leon

Tragedy tore the Bennett children apart when their mother walked out on them after the birth of her last child, followed by the suicide of a brother. Now, the five grown siblings, each brilliant, troubled and a little wacky, face personal crises that will bring them back together in a new way. Mark, a student at Stanford University is brilliant at String Theory but a novice at relationships. Having made a fatal faux pas at a university function, he now must have sessions with the university s formidable psychologist, Dr. Himmel, and family issues as well as the hopeless love he carries for a co-worker emerge. Mary, the eldest sister and surrogate mother, struggles with caring for their father Frank, a once famous furniture-maker, whose dementia is spiraling beyond Mary s control. Luke, the fragile youngest brother has been latched onto by a tattooed nymph named Willow. Ellie, artist and free spirit, whose much younger lover has left her pregnant and alone on a far-flung Greek island, asks Mary to come get her and bring her home to Santa Barbara to have her baby. Sarah, Ellie s identical twin, and up and coming New York photographer, has a drama of her own. She has discovered a homeless woman who may or may not be her mother, Jean. Told in e-mails, missed phone messages, and their unique and sometimes heartbreaking voices, A Theory of All Things weaves a lyrical, mesmerizing story of a family, who has loved and lost, who is broken, but is mending.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2010

About the author

Born and raised in Nevada, now living and loving it in the east, writing, reading voraciously, and sometimes teaching, in a small town in upstate New York, traveling whenever I can.

Favorite things: Books, books, books! Ethnic food, good movies, bad movies, art museums, the NYT crossword, breakfast made by someone else, laughs with my friends, as little exercise as humanly possible, foreign places, ruins without crowds, being under a warm ocean surrounded by fish that don't care if I'm there...

Least favorite things: Laundry, a rocky plane ride, an unkind word delivered on purpose

Next trip: Bhutan!!!

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second of five bound galleys that I’ve received from the Permanent Press. The first, the Chester Chronicles, was great. Peggy Leon’s A Theory of All Things may even be better. And honestly, I’m not just saying that, and I don’t feel under any obligation to love all these books. But I really do love this book!

A Theory of All Things opens with emails to and from Mark, a young man who evidently committed some dire faux pas at a university function. I think I may have met him many years ago, at college, studying math. He was the one that could wax eloquent about string theory but would struggle to understand why it’s not important to calculate minimal lengths for tying parcels together. He was the seriously cute one, genius in the making but not quite capable of living in this world of lesser beings. The author portrays Mark so convincingly that his mishaps evoke astonished laughter, his misunderstandings induce cringes of embarrassment, and his ham-handed attempts to compliment his girlfriend leave readers in despair.

But Mark has a family and a theory; several theories in fact, though he hopes one day to combine them. One theory in particular concerns the singularity of disaster. Can the past, before the world fell apart, actually be considered irrelevant to the present that grows out of its chaos? But who will it hurt to have their feelings and their memories so discounted?

Mark’s family and friends each have their say in this book. The writer sister who stays at home, center of the family, guardian of a father who’s falling apart from Alzheimers; the photographer composing images, real and imagined, into story; the artist digging beneath while missing what might be lying on the surface; and the wandering brother, Luke, who seems to have searched for home ever since he was six.

A disaster blew this family apart, but, like all disasters, it eventually proves to have been built on many things that came before. Characters create their own histories, and even the mathematician proves infinitely creative in his observations of entropy. But it isn’t true that everything’s winding down—not even the father whose broken memories evoke the phantom world of their lost childhoods. And strangers walking into their lives see and build on the foundations of the past.

Like a universe, expanding and contracting, the family is brought back together by circumstance. Love changes them. Memory feeds them. Risk brings them out of themselves. And Mark’s last grasp for truth doesn’t destroy it after all, but ends in a wonderful rebuilding and quiet revelation.

A Theory of All Things is a beautifully hopeful, vividly real and creative novel, built on fascinating characters, tragic situations, bright humor and solidly patient reality. Like one of Luke’s wind-chimes, so intriguingly described that the reader sees and hears them in the written word, the trials of life are turned into something startlingly wonderful, reflecting more than sunlight, elevating life, and mathematics, into art.

[LuAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure if everyone would agree with me on this one, but I absolutely LOVED this book!
It’s based on a totally dysfunctional family that takes their anger, hurt, jealousies and mental angst out on each other. They are better living with some distance between them. That way, they can vent through emails and voice messages.
However, circumstances bring all of them together in one place and the war begins. No one seems to agree on anything and it soon becomes a battle of emotions.
This is Peggy Leon’s second novel. The first, “Mother Country,” received rave reviews and I can see why. She’s a very good writer and has a unique way of describing what’s going on so you feel you are actually witnessing the characters and events.
By the end of the book, I had begun to truly relate to these people and even though they are somewhat nuts, they are also quite endearing.
They are also each artistic in different ways and a bit eccentric.
I love the father in the story. Suffering from Alzheimer’s, he has become almost innocent in his outlook on life and seems ambivalent to the arguments around him. Yet, you can tell he’s soaking it all in and during moments of lucidity, he will say something that makes you laugh, knowing he is using his condition to avoid the tangle!

[Mindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A Theory of All Things" is an engaging book, a story about love and loss, about how a family endures in crisis and holds itself together even as it spreads apart. It's a story with really interesting characters: a nerd (with Asperger's? seemingly, but it never says); a mother figure; a father with Alzheimer's; twin sisters, one a photographer, the other an artist, both with their own issues to handle; and a wanderer with a tattooed young girlfriend. It's an interesting story, and it's not afraid to leave some questions unanswered -- will Mark and Claire be alright together? Is Ruth really their mom after all? What about the babies? It doesn't leave you frustrated, but it doesn't beat you over the head with a too-neat ending, either. One small criticism: The ending does fall a tad flat. But honestly, I can't think of a better way to have written it, either. Overall, I'd recommend this book, though I wouldn't enthuse over it.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of the tragic Bennett family - sent in varied directions after the suicide of one of their brothers and abandonment by their mother. As their aging father sucuumbs to Alzheimer's, each child tells their own story, and that of their family, in their own words. The five remaining siblings range from the brilliant, but socially inept Mark, to the practical sister who stays home to care for their father, to the free-spirited hippie who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. While I appreciated the family aspect of this book, there were a bit too many moving pieces for me to really enjoy. Focusing on three siblings might have made for a better story. And, at times, it just seemed like too many bad things were happening to all these people. Leon is experimental in her narrative - telling portions of the story through emails among the siblings. An interesting portrait of a family, but disjointed at times.

[Jenny Richman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this book. I loved her first book, and I think I like the second even better. The story is narrated from the perspective of the surviving family members of a suicide. The characters are well developed and entertaining. Peg's great sense of irony and humor shine through her prose. She writes of Alzheimer's as someone who has had personal experience with this heartbreaking disease. The physics professor is endearing in his oblivious fog. I think each of us knows someone like this and wonder how they function. Each family member adds their thoughts to tell this tale and each story is entertaining. I enjoy a book when I am able to remember the characters and plot. I really enjoy a book when it is entertaining and keeps me reading past my bedtime. Thank you Peg.

[Kelly Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this one through Goodreads, and was quite happy to see it is the type of contemporary fiction I usually enjoy. The book didn't disappoint. Leon has each character express themselves through his/her own voice, in their own chapters, and she does a great job making their voices very unique and distinct. Not easy to do with such a wide cast of characters. I especially loved Mark's character and enjoyed watching him grow throughout the novel. The only thing I found a little hard to get behind was the situation with Sarah and "Mom"...a little farfetched compared to the other events, I thought. But overall an enjoyable read, and I learned an awful lot about quarks. :)

[Athena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another first-read. When I started reading this book, I was rather frightened that then entire story would be narrated by the physicist super geek, Mark. Although Mark's theories were intriguing, I think an entire book based solely on that would have been difficult to read. I think Peggy Leon did an excellent job of telling a family story through the eyes of multiple family members. She has an excellent sense of who her characters are, and how they might respond to any given situation. Unlike other stories I have read which are told from multiple perspectives, this one is much less repetitious. A quick read, I completed it in less than 2 days.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so glad that I was able to get a copy of this book through First-Reads! I really enjoyed it - it was a quick, fun read. The characters are fascinating, and I really liked how the story was told from all of their perspectives. I felt that the portrayal of a person with Alzheimer's disease was very compassionate and honest, as well as that of a family who lost their son/brother to suicide. I also thought that the big bang metaphor and all of the physics analogies that spanned the whole novel were very clever and really contributed to the flow of the story.

[Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very different book but a good one. The story involves a family where everything changed when a son commits suicide and the rest of the family deals with it in different ways. The mother left them years ago so the oldest daughter tries to keep the family together and as they grow up they leave and correspond through emails and letters. Eventually they come back home to be with their father who has dementia and try to work out their problems. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, it is a book worth reading and the characters will stay with you for a long time.

[Sunsetsue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read by Peggy Leon. The book is about five grown siblings, all struggling in a different way. Each chapter is written as if it is being told by that particlar sibling. The perspective created by that approach was different yet very enjoyable. I had trouble putting the book down as each chapater evolved. I felt the story came together very well and enjoyed the book from start to finish. I will be looking for Peggy Leon's other book soon.

[Jed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peggy Leon has produced a well-constructed story told through a series of narrators, nearly all adult members of the same family. Despite the inherent difficulties of using so many first-person narrators, Leon succeeds by employing a markedly different voice and emotional perspective for each of them, yet they all feel related to one another. All the main characters were sympathetic and I found myself rooting for each of them in turn. It was a pleasure to read. A worthy novel in every sense.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It was written in a very contemporary style, quoting from the character's e-mails to each other, among other bits of prose. I really liked the characters and enjoyed that the book switched narrators from chapter to chapter, giving each character a chance to explain the story from his or her perspective. The story contained a lot of art and physics references, so I found it very engaging.

[Maureen Moglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book about a group of grown siblings still dealing with the aftermath of a family tragedy. Each sibling has had to deal with the past on their own and in their dealings with each other. Fun interesting characters- some I loved- some I didn't- but all were interesting. I highly recommend it

[Theresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

My apologies to the author beforehand, but this story was so full of scientific theory and disjointed filler, the base story was hard to find. The gist was about the dynamics of a family, who suffered a tragedy and how each member dealt with and grew to adulthood.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting to see the dynamics of the siblings - my mom has 6 siblings and it very much made sense to me. It seemed like there was no major climax though - nothing really HAPPENED - it just kinda of...was.

[Rctgale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story of very creative siblings as they mature and deal with their pasts. Much is made of the brother with a PH.D in physics and it helps to have a knowledge of physics when reading this book.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice to read something different for a change. Interesting characters, interesting plotlines, nice use of multiple points of view.

[Adele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved every page of this book. I highly recommend it.