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The Other Einstein: A Novel Hardcover – October 18, 2016
"Superb...the haunting story of Einstein's brilliant first wife who was lost in his shadow."―Sue Monk Kidd, New York Times bestselling author of The Invention of Wings, The Secret Life of Bees, and The Mermaid Chair
"The Other Einstein takes you into Mileva's heart, mind, and study as she tries to forge a place for herself in a scientific world dominated by men."―Bustle
From the author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, in the tradition of The Paris Wife and Mrs. Poe, The Other Einstein offers us a window into a brilliant, fascinating woman whose light was lost in Einstein's enormous shadow. It is the story of Einstein's wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special theory of relativity is hotly debated and may have been inspired by her own profound and very personal insight.
Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most twenty-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.
Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Marie Benedict:
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie
Lady Clementine
The Only Woman in the Room
Carnegie's Maid
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSourcebooks Landmark
- Publication dateOctober 18, 2016
- Dimensions6.25 x 1.01 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-101492637254
- ISBN-13978-1492637257
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Beautifully written…a finely drawn portrait of a woman in love with the wrong man." ― Jillian Cantor, author of Margot and The Hours Count
"A crusading scientist undone by love....revealing, enlightening." ― Nuala O’Connor, author of Miss Emily
"In her compelling novel… Benedict makes a strong case that the brilliant woman behind [Albert Einstein] was integral to his success, and creates a rich historical portrait in the process." ― Publishers Weekly
"Benedict's debut novel carefully traces Mileva's life―from studious schoolgirl to bereaved mother―with attention paid to the conflicts between personal goals and social conventions. An intriguing… reimagining of one of the strongest intellectual partnerships of the 19th century." ― Kirkus Reviews
"Many will enjoy Benedict’s feminist views and be fascinated by the life of an almost unknown woman." ― RT Book Reviews, 4 Stars
"...INTIMATE and IMMERSIVE historical novel....Prepare to be moved by this provocative history of a woman whose experiences will resonate with today’s readers." ― Library Journal, Editors' Fall Picks
"The Other Einstein takes you into Mileva’s heart, mind, and study as she tries to forge a place for herself in a scientific world dominated by men. " ― Bustle
"…an ENGAGING and THOUGHT PROVOKING fictional telling of the poignant story of an overshadowed woman scientist." ― Booklist
"Superb…the haunting story of Einstein’s brilliant first wife who was lost in his shadow." ― Sue Monk Kidd, NYT bestselling author of The Invention of Wings, The Secret Life of Bees, and The Mermaid Chair
About the Author
Marie Benedictis a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a litigator at two of the country’s premier law firms and for Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus in history and art history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. Marie, the author of The Other Einstein, Carnegie’s Maid, The Only Woman in the Room, and Lady Clementine, views herself as an archaeologist of sorts, telling the untold stories of women. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.
Product details
- Publisher : Sourcebooks Landmark (October 18, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1492637254
- ISBN-13 : 978-1492637257
- Item Weight : 1.06 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1.01 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #448,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,053 in Biographical Historical Fiction
- #1,799 in Biographical Fiction (Books)
- #23,966 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms, who found her calling unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. Her mission is to excavate from the past the most important, complex and fascinating women of history and bring them into the light of present-day where we can finally perceive the breadth of their contributions as well as the insights they bring to modern day issues. She embarked on a new, thematically connected series of historical novels with THE OTHER EINSTEIN, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein's first wife, a physicist herself, and the role she might have played in his theories. The next novel in this series is the USA Today bestselling CARNEGIE'S MAID -- which released in January of 2018 -- and the book that followed is the New York Times bestseller and Barnes & Noble Book Club Pick THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM, the story of the brilliant inventor Hedy Lamarr, which published in January of 2019. In January of 2020, LADY CLEMENTINE, the story of the incredible Clementine Churchill, was released, and became an international bestseller. Her next novel, the Instant NYTimes and USAToday bestselling THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE, was published on December 29, 2020, and her first co-written book, THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, with the talented Victoria Christopher Murray, will be released on June 29, 2021. Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, and Brigid of Kildare.
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She took up lodging at Engelbrecht Pension an all-girl boarding house where she became friends with Milana, Ruzica, and most especially Helena who also had a limp. She had never had friends before.as.She was always teased and ridiculed. In class, Dr. Weber was particularly hard on her because she was a woman and because she was Serbian. One student reaches out to.her and that student was Albert Einstein. He flirted shamefully with her and she turned him down. Her friend Ruzica talked her into going into one of the cafes where Einstein and his friends were having an intellectual discussion on science and she found herself drawn into the discussion. When Einstein found out about the women's playing music after dinner he showed up uninvited with his violin to play with Milena. The other women don't much care for him, though.
Helena and Milena have made a pact to not have a man in their lives and to focus on their careers. But soon, Helena has found a man to love and has broken the pact. So, Milena doesn't see why she has to keep the pact too, especially when her mother is encouraging her to pursue romance even though her father is against it. Einstein and Milena have talked about marriage and while Einstein has graduated now and is looking for work, which is hard because his teachers aren't giving him good recommendations due to his absentees from class and his disrespect toward them. Milena took a semester off her second year in order to cool off her feelings for him and got behind in school which meant that she had to wait another year before she could take the test.
Einstein talks her into taking a vacation at Lake Como where they can make love before they get married. Milena comes back pregnant and Einstein won't marry her without a steady job. She flunks the exams due to her pregnancy and he refuses to come to her home to talk to her parents about the pregnancy. He has a lead on a job in the Patent Office but for now, he's tutoring. She takes the train up to the next stop to see him but he refuses to take the train up to the next stop to see her. Eventually, her money runs out and she must go back home furious at him for not seeing her. She has a baby girl that he asks her to leave with her parents six months later because he got the patent office job and he listed himself as unmarried and he can't show up with a child in tow. So she does for now.
On a paper they worked on together he asks that she take her name off of it in order for him to get better job prospects when he shows it to a friend. A year later their daughter comes down with scarlet fever and dies. On the way home riding the train, she comes up with the Theory of Relativity. The year 1905 was known as Einstein's Year of Wonder. He published four groundbreaking papers. Milena's name was supposed to be on them but he took her name off of them. She was furious. This cracked their marriage. Not to mention the infidelity. Einstein was a real bastard.
While this book plays a little fast and loose with the facts in that no one really knows what really happened and the author is imagining what she thinks happened, it is indeed a possibility. You really feel sorry for Milena who loses everything in her association with Einstein. This was a really good book that tells an incredible story. I give it five out of five stars.
Quotes
I had become the embodiment of the old Serbian phrase the house doesn’t rest on the earth but on the woman.
-Marie Benedict (The Other Einstein p 175)
A deformed hip let Mileva pursue an education in a man’s field–physics right at the dawn of the 20th Century. In her cohort was the young Albert Einstein who takes an interest in Mileva from the get-go. While Mileva has made a pact with other girls to pursue science and live the life of a professional, Einstein continues his efforts to ingratiate himself. As feelings ripen, Mileva takes the BFF pact with the girls very seriously and flees to another University. When she gives up and returns to Switzerland, the girls and Einstein love finally triumphs. Until it doesn’t. She should have trusted her gut reactions. But, woman believe what the want in any day and age. (Been there myself, got the t-shirt and the divorce). Idealistic, sheltered. Sadly it often adds up to gullible and manipulable.
Since time began men have used smart women to advance their careers. In the early 20th Century it was considered a good move to marry the boss’s daughter or similar. After all, marriage made them “one.” Many a woman has contributed far, far more than we’ll ever know to a famous man’s career. Remember Harry Truman’s saying? “Behind every successful man is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law.” But in Albert Einstein’s early career it was an outraged wife and a surprised mother-in-law. But that outraged wife was savvy–way savvier than her using rat of a hubby.
This book is well written and believable. The author gives a full account of what is fact and what is fiction which helps. But even acknowledging that Mileva was very, very well educated and therefore would have come into contact with progressive views on women-probably even going so far as to read the early feminists. Add that Albert made the so-called Bohemian life seem so romantic (hardly the first time a man’s pulled that ruse, either be it a lifestyle on the extreme left or the extreme right), I found some of her outrage a bit too 21st Century. While, I doubt another woman was duped to the point of a Nobel Prize, I just think at that time and place she’d have gone on accepting the lies. The pleasant surprise was how she negotiated the end. Brilliant move.
But, did she really clearly see that Berlin saw East Europeans so badly then? Antisemitism was clearly present in Kaiser Wilhelm II’s reign and in his court, but the East European discrimination, I’m not sure. Finally, I found it very odd that she didn’t have at least a maid of all work.
In the end I did not like Milvena-she was full of herself. But if I disliked her, I loathed Albert Einstein.
I love how the author incorporated God with science.
Highly recommend