The Explanation for Everything - Hardcover

Grodstein, Lauren

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1616201126 ISBN 13: 9781616201128

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 2013

Synopsis

As she did in the bestselling novel A Friend of the Family, Lauren Grodstein has written another provocative morality tale, this time dissecting the permeable line between faith and doubt.

College professor Andy Waite is picking up the pieces of a shattered life. Between his research in evolutionary biology and caring for his young daughters, his days are reassurringly safe, if a bit lonely. But when Melissa Potter—charismatic, unpredictable, and devout—asks him to advise her study of intelligent design, he agrees. Suddenly, the world that Andy has fought to rebuild is rocked to its foundations.

“A well-crafted story of wayward souls searching for forgiveness, healing and personal truth.” —Family Circle

“Grodstein handles everything with a subtle wit, managing to skewer both the ultraconservative and the ultraliberal without making either seem absolutely wrong . . . Reminiscent of Carolyn Parkhurst’s Dogs of Babel.” —Booklist

“Finding or losing God proves to be an equally destabilizing tectonic shift, and this novel is full of them . . . Their cumulative force will leave you happily unsteady, and moved.” —The Washington Post

“A master storyteller . . . Tackles the tough topics: healing after loss, the relevance and possibility of the divine in our lives, the gilded shackles of academic life, and life in Southern New Jersey—all while always being terrifically entertaining.” —*Ben Schrank, author of Love Is a Canoe

“Engrossing . . . You’ll likely close the book with a new perspective on faith, justice, mercy, and the difficulty of holding a moral high ground.” —Bust

“A novel of ideas and a deeply felt story of love, loss, hope, and the healing powers of forgiveness . . . A provocative, moving story, and a beautifully written one.” —Dani Shapiro, author of Devotion

About this title

From the Back Cover

As she did in the bestselling novel A Friend of the Family, author Lauren Grodstein has written a taut, provocative morality tale centered on one of the most polarizing issues of our time.

There is nothing inherently threatening about Melissa, a young evangelist hoping to write the definitive paper on intelligent design. But when she implores Andy Waite, a biology professor and a hardcore evolutionist, to direct her independent study, she becomes the catalyst for the collapsing house of cards surrounding him. As he works with Melissa, Andy finds that everything about his world is starting to add up differently. Suddenly there is the possibility of faith. But with it come responsibility and guilt—the very things that Andy has sidestepped for years.

Professor Waite is nearing the moment when his life might settle down a bit: tenure is in sight, his daughters are starting to grow up, and he's slowly but surely healing from the sudden loss of his wife. His life is starting to make sense again—until the scientific stance that has defined his life and his work is challenged by this charismatic student.

In a bravura performance, Lauren Grodstein dissects the permeable line between faith and doubt to create a fiercely intelligent story about the lies we tell ourselves, the deceptions we sustain with others, and how violated boundaries—between students and teachers, believers and nonbelievers—can have devastating consequences.

From the Inside Flap

As she did in the bestselling novel A Friend of the Family, author Lauren Grodstein has written a taut, provocative morality tale centered on one of the most polarizing issues of our time.

There is nothing inherently threatening about Melissa, a young evangelist hoping to write the definitive paper on intelligent design. But when she implores Andy Waite, a biology professor and a hardcore evolutionist, to direct her independent study, she becomes the catalyst for the collapsing house of cards surrounding him. As he works with Melissa, Andy finds that everything about his world is starting to add up differently. Suddenly there is the possibility of faith. But with it come responsibility and guilt the very things that Andy has sidestepped for years.

Professor Waite is nearing the moment when his life might settle down a bit: tenure is in sight, his daughters are starting to grow up, and he's slowly but surely healing from the sudden loss of his wife. His life is starting to make sense again until the scientific stance that has defined his life and his work is challenged by this charismatic student.

In a bravura performance, Lauren Grodstein dissects the permeable line between faith and doubt to create a fiercely intelligent story about the lies we tell ourselves, the deceptions we sustain with others, and how violated boundaries between students and teachers, believers and nonbelievers can have devastating consequences.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The EXPLANATION for EVERYTHING

a novel

By LAUREN GRODSTEIN

ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

Copyright © 2013 Lauren Grodstein
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61620-112-8

CHAPTER 1

The first time Andy met Louisa, she was covered in blood. Hewas a bit bloodied himself, having just suffered a minor bicycleaccident where Nassau intersects with Mercer and nobodycan see himself coming or going. It was a Sunday morning in1994, and Andy was wearing the ridiculous clothing he'd lethimself get talked into by the cute salesgirl at Kopp's, purplespandex shorts—"junk-huggers!" Rosenblum hooted—and ablack and silver nylon shirt. Anyway, he'd been daydreaming,yes, but he was reflexively careful at that intersection. Andthen an Audi out of nowhere, some cursing, an unnecessaryambulance, and now here he was, cradling what was almostcertainly a broken wrist and thinking about his dissertationand the way the Mercer County emergency room smelled likeurine and paint. The orange plastic chair was hard under hisbutt; his bicycle-friendly spandex shorts offered no paddingwhatsoever.

Then, as CNN began to rotate through yet another storyon O.J. Simpson, this girl sat down next to him, hair trailingdown her shoulders and around her face, the most magnificentsample of human hair he'd ever seen. Brown and gold streaksand some blond in there too, curls and waves, like in a magazine.The face wasn't bad either, as far as he could tell fromprofile: a nice curve of the cheek, a slightly oversized, bumpynose, a full mouth. But it was that hair he couldn't stop lookingat. He had the absurd compulsion to stick his hands in it,and was grateful to his probably broken wrist for stoppingwhat would have otherwise been a sure breach of etiquette.

She was not looking at him. Her left hand was wrapped inred-stained gauze, and she had blood on her white T-shirt,and blood on her jeans.

"What are you here for?" he asked. The question was absurd,but he felt that if he talked to her, he would almost certainlynot stick his good hand in her hair, or, if he did, conversationwould offer him an opportunity to first ask permission.

She turned her head. The face was prettier straight on thanit was in profile, nice eyes, the shape of almonds, and irises thecolor of almonds too, and the bumps in the nose receded as amatter of perspective. She had small, shell-like ears, each onerimmed with stud earrings. She smiled. "I cut myself."

"Right," he said. She smiled at him again, and for the firsttime since the Audi, he didn't think, even obliquely, about hiswrist. "How so?"

"Opening a can of caviar. Isn't that ridiculous? I think I cuta cephalic vein. The shit will not stop bleeding." She lookeddown at her bandaged arm, sighed heavily.

"A cephalic vein, huh?" he said. "Interesting." Here Andywas thinking of the Latin word cephalicus and trying to showoff. "Isn't that a vein in your head?"

"Your arm," she said, holding out hers. It was a thin, freckledarm, finely covered with reddish gold hairs, except for thepart that was wrapped in reddening gauze.

"But cephalization is the formation of neural structures inthe head." He knew this from his biology training. "So thatdoesn't make any sense, that it would be in your arm."

"And yet it is."

"But that doesn't make sense." Why was he fighting withher? "Are you a biologist?"

She shook her head. "I'm actually a nurse," she said. "InPhilly. Which is too bad, because if I were in Philly I'd probablyget some kind of professional courtesy. But of course Ihave to cut myself in Princeton, where nobody knows me. Andso," she said, grandly, "I wait."

"Was it really a can of caviar?"

"Who would make that up?"

"Does it hurt?"

"No worse than your wrist," she said, looking at the wristhe was cradling. Her gaze was pointed; his wrist was in hislap. Andy crossed his legs. Oh, these ridiculous bicycle shorts!

"How long do you think I'm going to wait, anyway?" sheasked, raising her almond-colored eyes.

"I've been here since eight thirty."

"Christ," she said. "It's almost noon."

"Is it?" Could he say to her that time stopped the second hefirst caught sight of her and her hair? She leaned back againstthe chair, closed her eyes. She had long black lashes, thicklike a paintbrush. She breathed in and out deeply, as thoughshe were a person preparing to sleep. Andy hadn't spent timewith a woman with anything like regularity in months. Mostof his friends in the department were male, and Rosenblum,of course, and even the plurality of his students. How nice itwas, he thought, to talk to a woman! To this beautiful woman!

"What are you doing in Princeton?" he asked, even thoughshe gave no indication she wanted to keep talking.

"Boyfriend," she said, her eyes still closed.

"Oh," Andy said. He did not feel dejected, because he hadnever considered himself an actual candidate to become thiswoman's boyfriend; the fact that she already had one couldn'tbe a deterrent from a position he had never considered occupying.How could he ever be this woman's boyfriend? Thewomen Andy dated were severe, prone to nervous breakdownsover their studies. When they cut themselves, it was usually onpurpose. "Where is he now?"

"He had to study. He's got his math orals coming up."

"So he just dropped you here?"

"I know, right?" She opened her eyes. "It's probably time toget a new boyfriend."

But before Andy could follow that tantalizing lead—whatkind of new boyfriend and where would you go looking forthis new boyfriend?—a woman with a clipboard appeared inthe doorway to the examining room. "Waite? Andrew Waite?"

He stood.

"Is she telling you to wait?" the woman said. Lou. Louasked him this. She was sitting up again, and the gauze aroundher wrist looked ever darker with blood, and he wanted topick her up and carry her off to a better place or, at the veryleast, give her his place in line.

Instead, he said, "That's my last name. Waite."

"Oh," she said.

"Do you want my turn?"

She smiled at him again, gently, as though he were a fool.

"You look like you're in worse shape than I am," he said ina rush. "Seriously. I'll be fine. You should take my turn, you'rebleeding to death."

She shook her head and a curl of that hair fell into her face."That's nice," she said. "Thank you, that's really nice, but youshould go ahead. I'm not going to die."

Andy felt himself heartened by this. This girl wasn't goingto die. Louisa—he did not yet know she was Louisa—said shewasn't going to die. And he did not yet know that he shouldn'tbelieve her.

"Okay," he said, and followed the beckoning of the womanwith the clipboard, and when he turned to look at her onemore time, she winked at him, and he was fairly certain heblushed back. He wished once more that he was wearing adifferent pair of shorts.

Hank Rosenblum, Andy's friend, mentor, and guideto all things masculine, who had been divorced four times yetparadoxically considered himself an expert on women, saidthat she had just been looking to flirt. In Rosenblum's opinion,women who said, "I probably need a new boyfriend" to thegoobers breathing down their necks in emergency rooms werealmost certainly just looking for a little affirmation, but still,he said, there was no reason Andy couldn't keep an eye out.In fact, Rosenblum said, if she had a boyfriend in the mathdepartment, he'd be happy to do a little spying on Andy's behalf.Although Rosenblum himself was a member of Princeton'sbiology department, he had a few friends in math heliked to hit up for statistical models every so often. Further, themathematicians enjoyed a garden behind their building wherea man could smoke a pipeful of tobacco in peace. Rosenblumliked to spend time there, identifying flowers with a pipe in hismouth. He fancied himself a gentleman horticulturist.

"So?" Rosenblum said, as Andy delivered a stack of gradedpapers—papers he'd graded painstakingly with his uninjuredleft hand. "You want me to find her for you?"

"I don't know," he said. "She's got a boyfriend."

"So that's it? You let her go?" Rosenblum was sitting amidthe educated squalor of his office, files everywhere like the aftermathof a ticker tape parade, books on every surface, deadplants, a dead terrarium, an empty aquarium, an empty ashtray,and the detritus of his life as a celebrity: T-shirts, posters,and pins emblazoned with his face over the title of his mostrecent bestseller, Religion's Dangerous Lie.

Andy leaned back against Rosenblum's doorframe. He wasalready itching under his cast, and the thing was supposedto stay on for six more weeks. "I don't think I ever had her,Hank. I don't see how I can let her go."

Rosenblum raised his crazed eyebrows. "Well, for chrissakes,Andrew, sit down. Didn't your mother ever teach youit's rude to stand in people's doorways? Or don't people knowthat in Ohio?"

This was part of Rosenblum's cosmology—that Andy was afatherless rube from the sticks (greater Cleveland) who needed asophisticate like Rosenblum (who hailed from the most Jewishprecincts of Brooklyn) to show him the ways of the world.Andy was one in a line of students to whom Rosenblum hadtaken a liking, cooked dinner for ("You ever try ahi tuna? No,idiot, it doesn't come from a can"), poured wine for, tried totrain not only as a biologist but as a certain kind of bon vivant,one attuned to the pleasures of the world as much as thewonders of the microscope. Andy had proven himself a keenstudent—Rosenblum's major requirement, in a mentee, wasthat he be both bright and a touch sycophantic—and the factthat he was from Ohio, of all places, made Rosenblum thatmuch more interested in Andy's transformation. "Ohio!" hewould hoot, apropos of little. "Is there any state more depressinglynowhere than Ohio? Has anything great ever happenedin Ohio? To anyone from Ohio? In the whole history of Ohio?"

"Paul Newman?" Andy would offer. "Neil Armstrong?"

"Hollywood!" Rosenblum would counter, self-righteous."The moon!"

Rosenblum liked to take Andy out to eat on occasion at thefinest restaurants in central New Jersey ("Which of course islike swimming on the finest beach in Siberia, but what can wedo?") and took him to J. Press for a decent suit to wear to theGene and Genome convention in Chicago ("We'll charge itto the department," Rosenblum said, rakishly, although Andysuspected he'd paid for it himself).

And of course, amid all this Pygmalion bustle, Rosenblumoversaw Andy's biology training. Andy was interested in genetheory, and Rosenblum, one of the premier American evolutionarybiologists of his generation, guided Andy's researchthrough generations of mice and endlessly revised papers. Itwas with Rosenblum that Andy published his first research,and it was under Rosenblum's careful supervision that Andydevised his dissertation thesis around the relationship betweenspecific brain structures and specific degenerative conditions.And it was under Rosenblum that Andy became an avowedand devoted atheist, seeking out, like his mentor, the superstitiousgaze of the Believer wherever it roamed and staring itdown in an unlosable game of chicken.

"Listen, my young friend," Rosenblum said, flicking somethinginvisible from his cuff before turning his attention backto Andy's pathetic figure slumping into the seat opposite him."Don't be a schmuck. This beautiful girl gives you an opening,you can't just let her go."

"It really wasn't such a great opening. And anyway, when Ileft the ER she was gone."

"So? You can't get a nurse to give you her records? Find outher address?"

"Hank, come on."

"You said she's a nurse in Philly. Did she tell you where?"

"Obviously if she had I would know where to look for her."

"Then we're going to have to go through the boyfriend,"Rosenblum sighed. He'd put on weight in the years since Andyhad met him, sat like a half-bald Buddha behind his rosewooddesk. "This boyfriend's in math, you said? Okay, we'll startwith math."

"We?"

Rosenblum couldn't help himself—so loving, so pushy. "Ican see who's administering the bastard's orals. Maybe we canfail him. You want me to fail him? A few people in math oweme favors."

"Jesus, Hank." Rosenblum was like that too—sneaky andmorally unhinged. "I can ask around myself."

"Fine," he said. "Be that way." He shifted the stack of papersAndy had delivered, the ones he would never read. "Butdon't let her go, Andrew. How old are you, twenty-four? I hadbeen married twice by the time I was twenty-four."

"That's not true."

"I was a father several times over."

"That's not true either."

"Get out of here," Rosenblum said. "I'm sick of you. Men likeyou, sensitive men. Really, you make me sick." But Rosenblumwas smiling.

"Thanks, Hank. That's good of you."

"I mean it," said Rosenblum. "Get out of here. Go findyour girl."

Which turned out to be much easier than snooping aroundthe math department, not that Andy didn't snoop around themath department and its rose bushes, or dream up ways ofstealing her ER records, or imagine combing Princeton's colonialavenues in search, Rapunzel-like, of a flash of that beautifulhair.

But none of this was necessary, because two weeks afterfirst crossing her emergent path, there she was, in front of theRecord Exchange, bending down to tie a shoe. He realizedthat since he'd been expecting to see her everywhere, he wasn'tsurprised when he finally did. She was wearing a jacket but abandage peeked out from under it, enclosing her left hand.His own wrist itched madly. There she was, his girl, a fellowveteran from an imaginary war.

"Hey!" he said. "Hey!" He tried to tone down his grin butit was impossible, he was too happy, she was too lovely—andstanding right there.

"Mr. Waite," she said. "Hello." She remembered his name!And she was smiling too. She gathered her hair back in hergood hand and pushed it off her shoulders, but it immediatelybreezed back around her face. "I was wondering if I'd bumpinto you again."

"Visiting your boyfriend?"

"Walking to the train."

"You're going to walk?"

She sighed, kicked one of the bags at her feet. "He failed hisorals. He's moving to New Mexico. I'm not going with him."She looked embarrassed. "So I think," she said, "that's the endof that. And therefore," grandly, "I walk."

"Ah," Andy said. He wanted to take this in but again that lunaticdesire to plunge his hands into the depths of her hair (andthis time, now, to cradle her face, to kiss her pillow-soft lips.Man, he was itchy). Had Rosenblum fixed this for him? Theboyfriend's failure? He'd send him a box of cigars. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks," she said. She had a huge duffel bag and a rollersuitcase. A lot of stuff. "It's probably fine. I mean, I think we'llboth end up fine. And I need to spend more time in Phillyanyway. Not that there's anything so great about Philly. But itis, you know, where I'm supposed to be working."

"I like Philly," he said. They grinned at each other again,stupidly. "What's your name, anyway?"

"I'm Louisa," she said.

"That's pretty."

"It is," she said. "But you should call me Lou."

And from there, it was easy. He felt, in fact, thatthe ease was his reward for everything that had been so hardfrom the beginning: escaping Ohio, finding a place at Princeton,finding a few friends, finding Rosenblum. Putting togethera life for himself, learning to cook and clean and look afterhimself and live like a grown-up with no one but Rosenblumto show him the way, to help him figure out what mattered.He walked Lou to the train, hefting her duffel bag with hisgood hand down the bumpy side street to the jitney.

"How do I find you again? If you're not coming back toPrinceton?"

"You call me," she said, making it sound like an instruction.He called her. She called him back. That easy. They weremarried at the Princeton Faculty Club in front of forty peoplea year later, her parents from Arizona, his mother from Ohio.Rosenblum did the officiating, which was a service he providedto all comers so that no man would be forced to interact withclergy in order to participate in a state institution, like marriage.

Lou promised she would nurture him. Andy promised hewould take care of her for the rest of her days. They honeymoonedin Paris, he wrote his dissertation in their tiny studioin Philadelphia, and once he was officially Dr. Waite, theymoved to Miami for his postdoc. There, she worked twelve-hourshifts in the NICU of Kendall Regional. He performedEEGs on rats. At night, in the air-conditioned haven of theirmoderately priced apartment in Quail Run ("Whence thequail?" she would ask. "Where do they run?") they would lietogether in their bed and imagine their future children.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The EXPLANATION for EVERYTHING by LAUREN GRODSTEIN. Copyright © 2013 Lauren Grodstein. Excerpted by permission of ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1616201126
• ISBN 13: 9781616201128
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 338