The Goddess of Small Victories

“Painstakingly researched, seamlessly translated, this is historical fiction of exceptional daring.” —Booklist, starred review

“An intellectually challenging…deconstruction of the notion of ‘the great man.’” —Kirkus

“The Goddess of Small Victories is a pitch perfect comedy of manners set on an intellectual Mt. Olympus in mid-20th century New Jersey. Albert, Oskar, Oppie, Johnny and Kurt are the reigning deities. Mathematical gossip and conspiracy theories are served up with birdbath-sized martinis and three inch steaks. Domestic relations appear to be governed by Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Yannick Grannec’s portrait of the marriage-of-opposites at the heart of the novel is pure genius.” —Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind

“By focusing on the woman who kept Gödel’s demons at bay, The Goddess of Small Victories succeeds in portraying the human side of his life in a way that sympathetically captures its mix of triumph, tragedy and eccentricity, without sacrificing historical or mathematical accuracy. No wonder it has already won prestigious literary awards.” —John W. Dawson, Jr, author of Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Gödel

“I loved this book. It takes us back to one of the most important periods in our scientific history, when The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton served as an ingathering place for some of the most brilliant, and tortured, minds of their day. And it brings one of the forgotten geniuses of that day vividly to life.” —Douglas Starr, author of The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and The Birth of Forensic Science

“A model of novelistic efficiency which intelligently combines history, theorems, passion, and flamingos.” —Lire

“Suffice it to say that The Goddess of Small Victories is an astonishing novel.” —Le Point

“A first novel as ambitious as it is accessible.” —Le Soir

“Breathtaking.” —Livres Hebdo

“There is a thin line between genius and madness, one that is easily erased. If that is a cliché, there is nothing cliché about this book. This is the story of Kurt Gödel, one of the most brilliant mathematicians and philosophers of the twentieth century. More to the point, this is the story of his wife Adele, a cabaret dancer/hatcheck girl when they met in Roaring Twenties Vienna, who loved and cared for him for fifty years, until he died in 1980, consumed by paranoia and anorexia. Along the way we meet some of the greatest minds of that century (not least, Gödel’s good friend Albert Einstein). We also bear witness to some of the greatest atrocities to ever afflict humankind: the rise of the Nazis, the Anschluss and the McCarthy witch hunts of the fifties, all of which fed Gödel’s paranoia and led, inexorably to his death.” —Conrad Silverberg, Boswell Book Company (Milwaukee, WI)