The Beautiful Miscellaneous, Dominic Smith
The Beautiful Miscellaneous, Dominic Smith
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The Beautiful Miscellaneous

Author: Dominic Smith

Narrator: Richard Powers

Unabridged: 9 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/05/2007

Synopsis

From the critically acclaimed award-winning author of The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre comes this moving story of a boy trapped in the shadow of his father's genius. Nathan Nelson is the ordinary son of a brilliant physicist. From an early age, his father has doggedly prodded him toward greatness, enrolling him in whiz kid summer camps and teaching him college algebra. By the time Nathan is seventeen, hopes for a late-blooming prodigy seem dashed. Then, in the summer of 1987, everything changes. A tragic accident and ensuing coma leave Nathan with a profoundly 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.

About Dominic Smith

Dominic Smith is the author of six novels, including The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, which was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and a best book of the year at Amazon, Slate, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Kirkus Reviews. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and The Australian, among other publications. He grew up in Sydney, Australia, and now lives in Seattle, Washington.

About Richard Powers

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Theresa

There is so much to say about The Beautiful Miscellaneous yet I find myself struggling for words. I am no stranger to the work of Dominic Smith. Last year I read The Last Painting of Sara De Vos and absolutely loved it. The Beautiful Miscellaneous is not a new novel; it’s new to Australia, but it wa......more

Goodreads review by Danielle

I really, really liked this book to begin with, but it was kind of steadily downhill from the accident on (the turning point that takes place about a third of the way in). I actually wished I had stopped reading it, because the last third of the book was just disjointed and not nearly as well writte......more

Goodreads review by Nancy

"Later that night I drove home slowly in a light rain. The night felt cracked open, alive with possibility." One of many passages I underlined, I start with that because protagonist Nathan Nelson's experience in the car that night is just what this novel delivers to the reader. Aliveness with possib......more

Quotes

“With an exquisite ear not just for language but for emotional truth as well, Dominic Smith has written an ambitious and strikingly unusual tale about what it’s like to grow up in the shadow of a brilliant father and under the force of his expectations. I finished this book in awe of Smith’s imagination—and of his enormous heart.” Julia Glass, New York Times bestselling author of Three Junes and The Whole World Over

“[Smith] conjures Nathan’s colorful, mysterious new existence with vivid detail. The real story in this touching, gracefully wrought novel lies around the edges of the plot. It is really about the weight of family dreams and expectations.” Boston Globe

“Fantastic…an utterly fresh look at how a child can grow beyond parental expectations and find the genius of being himself.” People

“Garcia, a stage actor by training, treats Smith’s novel as an extended monologue to be performed, summoning the moods and sensations of its prose via subtle shifts of emphasis. The result is a performance-driven audiobook, rendered in minimalist fashion.” Publishers Weekly

“This unusual, gorgeously written novel is filled with pleasures.” Booklist (starred review)

“[A] finely modulated second novel…a luminous addition to novels about fathers and sons.” Kirkus Reviews

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