Customer Reviews

The Beautiful Miscellaneous

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When writing a coming of age novel an author runs the risk of producing yet another formulaic tale of how a young person endures life's hardships and "finds himself." It's a genre we can all relate to, we're all familiar with the trials and tribulations of youth. The test for a writer is then how do you take advantage of this easy way of connecting with readers without becoming cliché? While many fail at this task, Dominic Smith comes out far ahead through his multi dimensional characters, carefully constructed plot and well developed messages.

The main character, Nathan, is a young man who moves through his boyhood years with the keen awareness that he is failing his scientist father; Nathan is not the genius his father had brought him up to be. After barely surviving a severe car accident Nathan develops synesthesia, a condition that affects sensory input and storage, hence allowing exceptional memory capabilities. His father jumps at this second chance at having a gifted child and enrolls him in a type of live-in laboratory for savants. There he comes into his own, developing new relationships and learning about the ones he already has.

The Beautiful Miscellaneous takes on many hefty subjects, including familial relationships, love, death, religion and the unknown. At the same time, Smith keeps the tone light, making it a very enjoyable read. You take away what you want from this novel; an entertaining story about a boy with memory powers or a thought provoking story about what life means to each one of us.

The Beautiful Miscellaneous is the second novel from Dominic Smith. The first, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre, is historical fiction, while Miscellaneous is a foray into contemporary fiction. Set in the mid- to late 1980s, protagonist and narrator Nathan Nelson has the self-described misfortune of being the son of a particle-physicist genius, who first waits for the genius gene in his son to kick in, and then tries, unsuccessfully, to jump start it; Nathan of course considers himself average at best, wishing at times to please his father even as he longs for the freedom to simply be who he is, even if he's not yet sure who that is.

Following a car crash, the seventeen-year-old Nathan emerges from a two-week coma to find he has developed a case of synesthesia -- a medical condition which enables him to see, taste and feel emotions associated with words -- along with a photographic memory; he can memorize phonebooks, encyclopedias, and recall dialogue from television sitcoms. Nathan's father, Samuel, sees this as the precursor to great things to come for his son, and so he sends him to the Brook-Mills Institute for Talent Development, a research facility in which Nathan meets a host of other gifted young people, including a blind pianist who plays by ear and Teresa, a young woman who can look into a person and identify medical infirmities, and from whom Nathan learns to smoke and drink, and with whom he eventually falls in love. While Nathan is a charming if somewhat annoyingly passive protagonist, these tertiary characters, along with Whit, Samuel's best friend who also happens to be a retired astronaut turned poet who's verse suffers from an incurable case of the malapropism -- "Up here in the dark, far from the poi-holloi...", are a wonderfully colorful cast of supporting characters.

The narrative is nicely paced, at times humorous and nearly flawless in its poignancy, and if the denouement is a trifle too tidy, it is the journey -- the exploration into the nature of intelligence as well as the father/son relationship -- that makes Miscellaneous worth the read.

Highly recommended.

Nathan Nelson is the main character of the novel. He is the only child of a genius father. The father is certain that genius can arrive at any time. Although Nathan is above average, he is not like his father. And it soon becomes apparent that no amount of special training by his father or genius camps can transform him into brilliance. Nathan's mother is an extremely bright woman who runs the household with military discipline; loves reading novels; belongs to a travel club; makes exotic dishes for dinner; and attempts some normalcy in their household. In all they make a rather eccentric but loveable family. Not to mention that an ex-astronaut named Whit hangs out at their house a lot and becomes like a member of the family.

A few chapters in the novel, Nathan is involved in a car crash which causes clinical death; resurrection; and then a coma for several weeks. He appears to make a full recovery with one small exception ~ he can memorize everything, a state called synesthesia. First he recites everything from shows on television; then he memorizes the Bible; novels; poems, etc.. Not only can he remember everything but words come to him in color and Smith's literary talents really shine here, i.e., "burn resembled an upright man with a mustache; safe was something substantial, a stone house" (87). He goes on to tell us that every word was married to a mental image in his brain. The word guest is wheat-colored whereas the word patient is slate-gray. Smith's description are wonderful and a big part of the novel.

It appears that the accident may have let Nathan become the genius his father always wanted. Once Nathan has fully recovered he is sent to a school for gifted children where he mostly hangs out with a girl he falls for and learns to smoke and drink. Things are not going quite as planned. Than another unexpected tragedy strikes the family and things change again. Father and son struggle to come together throughout the novel and Smith makes the characters so real - almost touchable.

It's a great novel. It is funny and sad. It's a coming of age story for Nathan and a middle of the road story for his father and mother. It's about family and love and it is beautifully written. I loved every moment of this book and did not want it to end.

If you want to take a break from mysteries, thrillers, suspense, action, romance, and science fiction, READ THIS BOOK. However, I must warn you, you don't really get to escape all those genres. What I mean is this, Dominic has crafted a "coming of age" story of a bright, creative, and very normal young man who was born into a family of perfectionists, yet uniquely loving parents. His dreams and pursuits will never meet his father's expectations of him, until one day as a result of a near fatal car accident, he is bestowed with a unique gift that enables him to join an elite group of geniouses in a think tank environment. Problem solved with the parents, right? Wrong. Its never enough!

I loved this book, even though I spend 99% of my time reading thrillers, this one thrilled me in a new way. It allowed me to take a break from the action, and enjoy a good book that is based on a very cool scientific premise. No physics degree needed to read this book, you'll learn from it, but enjoy the progression of the story. The ending is satisfactory in a way that left me continuing to think about the scene. I don't do that often. I usually have the next book in line to read, but after reading this one last winter, I took a break for about a week from any books, just to let this one sink in.

I look forward to my next Thriller "break" when Dominic gives us his next one.

Though this story is a familiar one, it is told in a fresh perspective and with multi-dimensional characters. Smith draws you in immediately with sympathetic Nathan and his distant, but well-meaning father. The real joy of reading this book is the beautifully observed sentences. "...reflective surfaces of woven lives..." " ...the car gliding along the streets with maritime grace." "...the altar of memory."

A coming of age story about a young boy crushed under the seemingly endless expectations of his genius father. Nathan, the protagonist, spins a dramatic tale that never feels like it has reached a lull, a mean feat for this type of drama.

The central plot seems to consist in whether Nathan can ever come to understand that shadowy figure of his father, and in doing so, whether he can come to realize his own self and potential.

Written with lucid prose and a clear headed plot, this is a must read.

I've had my eye on the rising literary star of Dominic Smith since he debuted with "The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre" in 2006, and when his new novel appeared on the bookshelf, I didn't walk to the bookstore... I ran. The star shines still.

"The Beautiful Miscellaneous" is the story of a boy whose father is a physicist, a genius of science, forever frustrated with his sharp but not quite genius son. Can a car accident and a coma make a father happy? Well, in this case, it gives him hope of having that prodigy child he's wanted all along. When young Nathan comes out of his coma, he finds his brain injury has actually caused a condition called synesthesia, the ability to perceive words with several senses at once, not only hearing them, but also tasting and seeing them in varied colors. Alongside this interesting linguistic ability, Nathan has also developed a prodigious memory. Newly hopeful, his father sends him to the Brook-Mills Institute for Talent Development, where he meets a collection of off-the-wall young characters, each with their own area of talent or skill.

A sense of tension weaves throughout the story, as Nathan is caught between his desire to be accepted as he is, a mostly average kid, and wanting to please his father, surely the smartest man he's ever known. Yet technical intelligence is one thing, and an emotional and social intelligence quite another. A scene of father taking his son for a "special treat" on his birthday, ending in a trip to an accelerator, perhaps heaven for a physicist, but a sore disappointment for a kid who can't help daydreaming about the normalcy of an amusement park is almost unbearable in its disconnect between these two. Such are father-son relationships, too often, a balance between expectations and acceptance, the wish to impress, the falling short, and the final moment of truth, when one learns to love another human being in all their varied quirks and skill sets and idiosyncrasies, a blend of light and shadow, strengths and weaknesses.

An example of Smith's rich writing and storytelling appears in the developing not-quite relationship between Nathan and Teresa, another resident of the school for the oddly talented. Not quite a love story, it is more the hormonal rush of two adolescents who perhaps find a wary, somewhat bored acceptance in each other they cannot find in the world of the "normals" outside. Neither is mature enough for love, but their hormones drive them to explore the cautious boundaries of first lust, careful to never show each other the vulnerability that leads to a more mature intimacy until much later in the book, when Teresa asks older Nathan, "Do you ever still think about kissing me?"

Writes Smith: "I sat close to her on the floor, our knees touching. She took my hand and placed it on the top of her stomach; my wrist brushed her bra support, a plastic rib that later I would tell Toby was the 'the edge of the known world.' For a moment I was lost, dislocated. Oddly I thought about my father and Whit, about men. Why had no one mentioned this? Surely they had experienced this one moment of confined bliss, been forced into a submissive silence--sinners now in church. Whit spinning in space, my father peering into an electron microscope the way an astronomer stares at distant planets and hydrous stars, men continuing their lives but surely living for this unbridled moment... a genius or prodigy in love or lust laid himself bare, like a castle in ruins."

From such ruins rise new and wonderful connections, the intimacy of two persons baring skin and souls as much of a miracle, or more, than a physicist exploding electrons. The mind stretches often in the most daily human activities. When the ruins are the walls that keep two apart, their dust is the nutrient on which new relationships are built. Smith's mastery in capturing such miracles is what gives his writing, too, color, taste, and a scent for more such great stories to come.

After reading this book, I started to think about what the beautiful miscellaneous really is in our lives, in this world. Is it the genuises or is it the simple minded. Who or what really is normal and what can be considered outside the lines? Who doesn't fit the mold? Is the human fabric a unified field? Are we all parts of a one whole entity? And just like in physics (which the book uses a lot for a metaphor) are there random bits of mass that are unexplainable--the beautiful miscellaneous.

I really enjoyed this book, its not one of the most exciting, turn paging, reads but it was very nice. Simplistic at the same time as very advanced. The physics metaphors throughout the book left me puzzled and awed. I'd never known someone to write about science in a novel in such a beautiful way. It kind of reminded me of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, but without all the action. The Big Bang and God maybe they are one in the same. There are certain things left unexplainable by science like gravity and how life appeared out of seeming nothingness.

I enjoyed this book also for the characters. Each one teetering around in their own heads often unaware of what is around them, especially in the case of the father Samuel Nelson--the physics enthusiast. Many of the characters are so caught up in their own worlds, and turned off by the simplistic nature by which others live their lives. Nathan was always worried about impressing his father, always wondering what his father really thought of him, because his father's mind was always so secluded, and because he wasnt the genius that his father wanted him to be--in the end we find out that maybe Samuel cared more than he was able to show.

In truth, I picked this book to read from the store because I thougth it has a pretty cover and a cool title. Yes I judged a book by its cover. Shame on me. But I am glad I did in this case.

I picked up this book at a bookstore because of the apparent promise of its title and the premise. But belying the whimsical title is bleakness of the book's content--Smith has written a book about falling below expectations and coming to terms with it. Parallel to its main character, this book shows a lot of promise, but fails in yielding anything insightful--the delivery is graceful, but it fails in becoming a cohesive, profound piece of work.

The novel is narrated by Nathan Nelson, who tells the story of growing up under the shadow of a genius father. Born with ordinary intelligence, he dies briefly at the age of seventeen due to an accident, and comes back after a coma with extrasensory perception.

There is no doubt that Smith is a fine wordsmith. His fluid rhythms and word choices feel at times like the keys of Theloneous Monk, whose work Smith admires. His characters come alive, and fill the pages with their presence. Despite the positives, I found the structure rather lacking--the novel meandered at times, and its construction was ambitious, but sloppy. Events were meant to be symbolic and connected; they felt disparate and dull.

But every other fault could have been overlooked if not for the ending, which was immensely dissatisfying. When finished with the novel, I felt like Nathan's father, who waited his whole life for the moment when the frenzied mix of formulas and scientific laws would collide together in his son's brain to transform him into a genius, yet watched as the promises fizzled away like an old soda pop. I felt betrayed by my own expectations.

The betrayal may have been intentional, but the main character's inability to truly find happiness in the life that fate brought to him makes this novel a disheartening statement on life--it proposes that although people will find ways to deal with the randomness of life, happiness is inherently out of reach. Smith sums up his nihilistic view in the concluding chapter: "A history of inventions reveal we made the gun silencer (1908) before air conditioning (1911)...It's a story about pleasure before usefulness, about ingenuity in killing before improving our everyday lives."

Yes, randomness rooted in scientific laws and ugly human nature shape our lives. But human will, love, and the things unexplained by science and mathematics are not the miscellaneous--they are the keys to appreciating life.

I love this book: journey,life,love, discovery. If you find the editorial reviews (listed above)interesting then you will enjoy this book..