On a rainy Friday evening, Andrew Martin, a Cambridge University professor, comes up with a solution to the world’s most difficult mathematical problem. It has the power to change the course of human history. But then Professor Martin suddenly and without a trace disappears. When, after some time, they find him… walking down the highway completely naked, Professor Martin behaves in a somewhat strange way. To his wife and son, he seems like someone else. Everything around him appears utterly ridiculous to him; people seem worthy of pity, and human life is meaningless. Everything around him fills him with disgust.
Everything—except Newton. A worn-out, half-blind old dog. Can Debussy, David Bowie, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson keep Andrew Martin from the killing he is being forced to commit? Is there anything that goes better with a glass of white wine than a sandwich with peanut butter? And what is that strange feeling he gets when he looks into his wife’s eyes?
This witty, funny, and sad book at the same time is about how hard it is to be human. And how wonderfully great that is!