Reunion

The New York Times has called Alan Lightman “highly original and imaginative.” Each of his novels is a new exploration of that imagination, utterly unlike the others. Einstein’s Dreams, an international best-seller, was a whimsical and provocative tone poem about time. The Diagnosis, hailed by the Washington Post as a “major accomplishment” and a finalist for the National Book Award, was a disturbing examination of our obsession with speed, information, and money, and the resulting poverty of our spiritual lives. Lightman’s new novel, Reunion, is a delicate and haunting story of how we shape our identity through memory.

Charles is a middle-aged professor at a minor liberal-arts college, a once promising poet, admiring of passion but without passion himself. Without knowing why, he decides to attend his thirtieth college reunion. And there, he magically witnesses a replay of his senior year.

Drawn...

The New York Times

Alan Lightman's elegant new novel, spare, economical and charged with meaning, is a seasonal reminder that special effects can be luminously achieved without pyrotechnics. — Jonathan Wilson

Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948 and educated at Princeton and the California Institute of Technology, where he received a doctorate in theoretical physics. His previous books include the novels Einstein’s Dreams, Good Benito, and The Diagnosis, the collection of essays and fables Dance for Two, and several books on science. Einstein’s Dreams was an international bestseller, and The Diagnosis was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. His latest book, a collection of essays, A Sense of the Mysterious, will be published by Pantheon books in January 2005. Lightman’s other works include research papers in physics and astronomy. He has taught on the faculties of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently an adjunct professor of humanities at MIT.