Prizes

Starred review from February 27, 1995
Segal stretches himself in this wisest, most mature of his novels, a long, richly researched work about scientific genius that offers substantial rewards. Many will feel giddy when entering the mind of child prodigy Isabel da Costa, a physicist who creates a formula for the Unified Field Theory that baffled Einstein for the last 20 years of his life. Also on hand and headed toward likely Nobel Prizes are Sandy Raven, a geneticist who reverses the aging process in cells, and tragic Adam Coopersmith, who creates MR-Alpha, a drug that overcomes the antivirus that keeps many women from becoming pregnant. The childhoods, family dramas and love affairs of these three geniuses generate steady interest, as do their battles to be accepted, but the real kicker comes when two of the three find themselves facing fatal illnesses. Some of Segal's pages are less than inspired, mainly those about Sandy's obsession with an actress who becomes head of 20th Century-Fox, but few will care as Isabel, Adam and Sandy hack into undiscovered country and Nobels hover ever closer in what could be Segal's biggest hit since Love Story. 250,000 first printing; major ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection; Doubleday Book Club selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Book.