When Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey autopsied Albert Einstein in 1955, he removed the great scientist's brain, though whether he had the family's permission to do so remains in doubt. Either way, he kept the brain in his house, in a couple of cookie jars. When Paterniti learned of this, he sought out the elusive pathologist. When Harvey mentions his intentions of giving part of the brain to Einstein's niece Evelyn in California, Paterniti offers to drive him. Not quite as much of a romp as I'd hoped. I found myself a little nauseated every time he described the brain itself, which was in pieces, floating in formaldehyde. It doesn't help that Paterniti seems to want to present the brain as a sort of religious relic, but often falls short. The main draw for me was the opportunity for a vicarious cross-country road trip. Unfortunately, Paterniti and Harvey don't make for very interesting company. ( )

If there is a greater waste of time than taking Einstein's brain, in two Tupperware containers, on a cross country road trip, it could only be removing that brain during an autopsy in order to discover the source of Einstein's genius. Thomas Harvey, defrocked pathologist, did both of these things. He dedicated his life to them, in fact. Paterniti became his enabler, by going to interview Harvey and offering to drive the 85 year old retiree from his home in Princeton New Jersey to San Jose California in order to show the brain to Einstein's granddaughter, who really didn't want to see it.


It did provide Paterniti with a hook that he could hang a book proposal on, get him published and keep him from a lifetime of housepainting. It is a very readable book, a memoir of an uncomfortable cross country trip with an elderly stranger and has some funny incidents in which Paterniti confesses to strangers that they are transporting Einstein's brain in the trunk of their car. Harvey did fly back to New Jersey, presumable with the brain in his carry-on luggage, so there never was a need to actually drive the whole way, except to write a book about it.

Harvey's lifetime of research, with the help of various scientists with whom he has shared parts of the brain, is inconclusive. Einstein may have had more glial cells than average. The part of the brain associated with math, I didn't know there was such an organ, may have been somewhat larger that usual. Not much for 50 years of study. There is speculation in the book about cloning the brain. After half a century in formaldehyde there's no chance of that. That fact is kind of glossed over for the science fiction effect.

I'll Never Forget The Day I Read A Book!

Certainly not a book I would pick up and read on my own. I am having difficulty with the sequence of the book. It doesn't have a good flow for me; which makes it difficult to read. I find the author all over the place. ( )

A wonderful road trip story, and one that is unlike anything you have ever read. If you love travel stories pick this on up.

I guess every author wants to be Jack Kerouac; find a premise for driving across America and then share that drive and a fresh batch of insights with eager readers who will find their lives similarly changed. (And, it is that same passion which leads to all the blogs and tweets and book reviews that have inundated the web – the desire to share and be listened to and be a part of change.) All this just to say that most people are not Jack Kerouac, and I’m not even convinced our current zeitgeist would support such work. And all that to say that authors should be incredibly careful when writing about road trips to tell only about the trip, not about the internal journey – unless you really are the next Kerouac. (And a quick side note for readers that we must be critical about how we join the authors on that journey.)

All preface to the fact that Driving Mr. Albert is a nice book with a fascinating premise. But the book’s occasional dippings into the life of its author - his personal fears and concerns - seem a bit too introspective and really don’t help the text tell the story that is eventually told. That story is Mr. Paterniti’s actual experience of driving Thomas Harvey across America to give a piece of Einstein’s brain to Evelyn – Albert’s granddaughter. Apparently the legend that Albert Einstein’s brain is in the hands of the gentleman who performed his autopsy is true, and Mr. Harvey is that gentleman. Paterniti tracked him down and, in the process of learning more about this bizarre yet fascinating part of science history, agreed to drive Mr. Harvey on the trip.

When the story is about the trip, it is fine. But the author’s side tracks into his personal experience and problems do not bring anything new to the narrative. His personal stories do not provide a good framework for the trip, nor does the trip provide a framework for understanding the author’s life. And, while the overall story of the trip is interesting, it does feel as though the author was struggling to hang the narrative on something – efforts that seemed somewhat forced and stilted. There is a good chance that this would have been a better book if the story of Einstein’s brain had just been allowed to be told as it occurred. And let the reader learn their own lessons from that narrative. ( )