Einstein
Rides Shotgun
Michael Paterniti's
road trip with the physicist's brain has plenty of detours,
but not much drive
By JOSH TYRANGIEL
In April 1955 pathologist Thomas Harvey performed an autopsy
at Princeton (N.J.) Hospital on the cadaver of Albert Einstein.
After determining that Einstein died of a burst aneurysm in
the abdominal aorta, Dr. Harvey veered just a bit from protocol
by making a circular incision in the great man's head, removing
the 1.22-kg brain and dissecting it into 240 pieces before
taking the 20th century's most important gray matter home
in a glass jar filled with formaldehyde.
It sounds like the stuff of B movies, but when Michael Paterniti tracks Harvey down in New Jersey nearly a half-century later in Driving Mr. Albert (Little, Brown; 211 pages), it turns out to be closer to tragedy. For years the doctor has claimed to be conducting independent research on the purloined remains, but he has produced no findings, and reputable scientists dismiss him as a jerk. A parade of wives and children have abandoned him, and he hasn't practiced medicine in decades-all because of his zealous dedication to the chunks of brain. Now, at 84, Harvey is the kind of wonderfully flawed character writers pray for, and Paterniti's luck has only begun. Turns out the doctor wants to visit (and make peace with?) Einstein's daughter Evelyn in Berkeley, Calif. Faster than you can say movie rights, Paterniti, Harvey and Einstein's brain, now floating in a Tupperware container, are off to California in a rented Buick Skylark.
Then something funny happens. Actually, nothing happens. The two men relate the way perfect strangers sometimes do, by not talking. Paterniti probes here and there, but for the most part he's left to observe that Harvey is indeed quite a riddle. Driving Mr. Albert's provenance as a magazine article-albeit a National Magazine Awardwinning one-becomes painfully clear when Paterniti resorts to rehashing a few well-known biographical details about Einstein, musing about the (yawn) magic of the road and relating the minutiae of his girlfriend trouble, all seemingly to stretch his tale to book length.
Driving Mr. Albert's best recurring joke is that Harvey changes the subject whenever the author asks to pop off the Tupperware lid so that he can see the floating brainy bits for himself. If only Paterniti had been as persistent about getting inside the head of his living passenger.
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October 16, 2000
| NO. 41
C
O V E R
COVER:
So Long, Slobo
In a stunning climax to an electoral impasse, a street-level coup d'etat
captures Belgrade and forces Milosevic to cede power to Vojislav Kostunica
and a once disunited opposition
S
P O R T S
PARALYMPICS:
The Can-Do Games
In Sydney, the world's most outstanding disabled athletes prepare to put
their talent and training to the test
T
H E A R T S
MUSIC:
With a spectacular new album, British rock quintet Radiohead reinvents
itself-and maybe rock
CINEMA:
As a bad guy, Jeffrey Wright makes good Samuel L. Jackson gives Shaft
a makeover
BOOKS:
On the road with Einstein's brain dance: Bangarra creates magic with a
message
U
N I T E D S T A T E S
CAMPAIGN 2000:
Who's With Stupid?
The candidates are caricaturing each other: Bush is a servant of the rich,
Gore of Big Government. Do the labels fit?
TRAVELER'S
ADVISORY
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