Dancing with Einstein

by Kate Wenner

From the acclaimed author of Setting Fires, this highly original new novel offers a protagonist so intensely felt and so compassionately rendered that readers will not easily let her go at the novelDancing with Einsteins end. She is Marea Hoffman, who, after wandering the world for seven years, has returned to New York at age thirty with the intention of starting her real life.

But Marea approaches everything in her own idiosyncratic style, and she is soon seeing four different therapists simultaneously and telling her story to each in a different way. The story she reveals is about her childhood in 1950s Princeton during the age of “duck and cover” drills and McCarthyism, when fear of communism obsessed America. Marea’s father, a Holocaust survivor, worked on the Manhattan Project and later on the development of the hydrogen bomb; her mother was a confirmed pacifist.

Frightened by her early exposure to the threat of nuclear annihilation, young Marea finds comfort in the company of her father’s colleague and friend, the grandfatherly Albert Einstein. Einstein charms Marea even as he provokes the wrenching moral debate that will drive her parents apart. When Einstein disappears from Marea’s life as suddenly as he entered it and her father is killed in a mysterious car accident, she is left alone with a mother she no longer trusts and with questions that won’t go away.

Nearly two decades later, during the August hiatus from her four therapists, Marea takes a reluctant trip home to Princeton. There her eyes are newly opened to the past when she uncovers her father’s secret Cold War diary.

Weaving back and forth between 1970s New York and 1950s Princeton, Wenner’s exploration of the impact that history can have on a young life is powerful and moving—a deeply intelligent look at the challenge of finding hope in the modern age.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good read but I feel like I couldn't appreciate it as much as I wanted. I had what I hope was a mini reading slump. Will probably pick this up again someday

[bob walenski · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing little book ! I never expected this to open up into one of my favorite books of the year, but it did. It won me over instantly, and held me in its dance as the story unfolded.
It was simple really, a story of a young woman trying to understand her father's death and her own dysfunctional life. She takes on four different therapists, unknown to each other, and tries to knead her life, like the breads she kneads every night at her bakery job. Set in 1970's New York, Marea remembers back to her childhood and the way it shaped and distorted her. Her father worked on the Manhatten Project and later helped develop the hydrogen bomb. Her "Grandpa Albert" used to come for Sunday dinner at her family home in Princeton, NJ.
I loved the simplicity, sensitivity and insights in the story. It was a heartbreaking example of how children can inherit a situation in their family lives that profoundly affects them forever. The story was beautifully written and I would recommend this to anyone interested in the psychology of being human.

[Michael Alan Grapin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marea Hoffman has been wandering the world drifting from one experience to another for seven years. She's been searching for something but had no idea what it might be. Settling for the time being in the New York of 1975 at the age of thirty, she gets a job as an apprentice to a gay, hippy bread baker and then seeks the guidance of four different therapists from different schools of psychotherapy in hopes that one of them will help her sort out her life. Her father escaped the Nazis at the outset of the second world war, but her grandparents failed to make it out alive. Her father was one of the creators of the Atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and became friends with Albert Einstein whom Marea adopts as her grandfather. Her mother is a pacifist who despises what her husband does and their fighting drives him away and may have contributed to his death when Marea was twelve. I found the portrayal of Albert Einstein endearing and that of her father fascinating, but her other relationships felt awkward and discomfiting as perhaps was intended.

[Susan Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I expected

This was a psychological study of someone who was pretty confused and I didnt learn anything from her experiences. I expect to learn something if I'm reading an entire book

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall it was a very nice book. It was really intresting looking the whole process of Marea's journey trying to find herself.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read a long time ago. Interesting if awkward idea for a plot. A 30 year old woman has been wandering/travelling since college and lands in NYC (1970s). Starts seeing 4 therapists, a Freudian, a Jungian, and 2 others to try to figure herself out. Her main problem: her father died when she was 12; he was a scientist in the Manhattan Project and her parents marriage suffered because of it. (Her mother is a Quaker/Pacifist.) A little too much going on: nuclear war; Greenwich Village; Einstein (he was a family friend!); genocide; the Holocaust, gay parenting, etc. Like a quilt with too many large prints and not enough small ones. Still, I enjoyed it. The writing at times is self-conscious. Main character likeable and interesting.

[Lia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the plot really interesting and special! I loved how she gave us an idea about Marea's personality, not just by describing her memories/life but also describing what she observed whenever she was in the metro/in the street etc.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

*insert retching noise here*

[Giorgos Katsiampas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A presentation of huge capacity of the human brain regarding the memorise of imageries.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book club book, not something I picked up on my own. I couldn't put it down. I guess you could tell it's winter with long, cold, dark nights by the amount of reading that I have been doing. Some books put me to sleep. This one wouldn't let me sleep. I started it Thursday evening, worked Friday, but stayed awake until I finished it last night/early this morning. I loved the main character, Marea. I wish I had her bravery: traveling all over the world with nothing but a backpack. I am too much in the rut and security of home, job, etc. I can, however, identify with her loneliness and the distance she keeps between herself and others. I don't let very many people "in". I am closest to my dogs. Toward the end of the novel Marea is changing, growing and still coping as best she can. There is light at the end of the subway tunnel! I can't wait to discuss this book at our book club meeting on Wednesday.

[David Goldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book deeply moving as Marea deals with her complex life, her wanderings, and finally the times in which she grew up. A very worthwhile read.

[Alp Arslan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Babası ilk atom bombasının yapımında çalışmış ve kendisi 12 yaşındayken trafik kazasında ölmüş bir kadının yedi yıl boyunca dünyayı dolaştıktan sonra ülkesine geri dönüşünü ve aynı anda dört terapistle görüşüp kendisi, geçmişi ve babası hakkındaki sorularına cevap arama hikayesini anlatıyor. Kitabın nesi hoşuma gitti bilmiyorum ama (bu belki de her yerini sevdim demek) zorunlu haller dışında elimden bırakamadan bitirdim kendisini. Ana karakterimiz olan Marea'nın çocukluğunda Albert Dede'yle (Einstein) yaşadıkları, nükleer savaş tehdidiyle büyüyen bir çocuğun korkuları, insanın muhataplarına göre ruh hallerinin değişimini anlatan terapi diyaloglarıyla oldukça ilginç ve başarılı bir kitap olmuş.

[Andrea Schachner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Its a story of life, love, and glance into the world of Einstein.

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a few years ago, but it stuck in my mind. A young girl's dad is one of the scientists working on the atom bomb and Einstein is a family friend. Fascinating read.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really different book, beautiful prose, somewhat unfulfilling ending.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story line in this book caught my interest from page one. It is a book that I will think back on with enjoyment.

[Alexa Hamilton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really don't like books about therapy. This book is no exception.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hard book to describe but a book that stayed with me for quite awhile after I finished it.

[Carolyn Lind · Rating 2 out of 5]

"That was Marea's problem and her life" she feels her way into other people's skin, and her own skin is as thin as moth wings."

[Luisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is wonderful... i keep thinking about it.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent, but not a book I would read again.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic fictionalized account of Einstein in this novel.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

So -- what was the point of this? Life sucks? That's IT?

[Kelly McCloskey-Romero · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an emotionally intense story, beautifully written and transporting. As Marea goes to four (yes, four!) therapists to figure out her complex (aren't they all) family issues, the reader is brought along on this psychological journey to awareness. Wenner creates vivid pictures of 1970s New York, a tormented scientist father who worked on the Manhattan project, and a charming Albert Einstein who befriended Marea as a young girl. Although Marea was sometimes frustrating in her particular flawed way, immature and sometimes stupid, I still wanted the best for her, and the book ends in a hopeful way. I am impressed by all that this novel achieved, and I enjoyed reading it. I also like the way that Wenner incorporated stories from Marea's travels.

[♠ TABI⁷ ♠]

Somebody rec'd this so hard to me that I suppose I should read it if they're that in love with it xD