The Beautiful Miscellaneous

By: Dominic Smith

Narrated by: Richard Powers

Dominic Smith's novel explores genius and loss, failure and redemption, and a son's struggle with the crushing weight of his father's expectations.

Nathan Nelson is just above average in everything he does. However, his father, a renowned physicist, pursuing his quest to uncover his son's latent gifts, sends Nathan to whiz-kid summer camps to learn college algebra. By the time Nathan is 17, hopes for a late-blooming prodigy seem dashed.

Then a tragic accident and ensuing coma leave Nathan with an altered mind that allows him to memorize vast amounts of information. Nathan's father, seeking an application for the new talent, sends him to a research institute where, amid misfits and savants, Nathan tries to find a purpose for the new way he perceives the world.

©2007 Dominic Smith (P)2007 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Lyrical...poetic and darkly romantic...evocative." (Boston Globe)

"Highly entertaining...fascinating...Smith writes vividly....He has a talent for descriptive imagery." (New York Times)

Is that all there is?

This book promises much more than it delivers. It grazes over potentially intriguing subjects such as the inter-relatedness of quantum theory, human psychology and the existence of an eternal soul, but these are only treated sketchily as side-notes to what is otherwise a fairly standard coming of age story. It's relatively well-written, but a disappointment overall.

Ugh... goes nowhere... terribly boring

I listened to The Last Painting of Sarah Devos by this author and absolutely loved it. The writing and story were gripping. I found myself rewinding just to hear certain passages or sentences over again. The narrator is wonderful. So I thought The Beautiful Miscellaneous would be a good choice. Wrong... Did the same author write this book? This book was terribly dull, the narration uninspiring and the story endless. I kept thinking this will go somewhere but, no. Very disappointing. Although I listened to the entire book, I'm going to return it.