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SHARON HEATH

The History of my Body

A twist on the traditional coming-of-age story, The History of My Body is Fleur Robins’ own telling of her quixotic attempts to save her beloved grandfather amid a hectic household composed of a crusading pro-life father with a distaste for actual children, a helpless wreck of an alcoholic mother, a middle-aged nanny with all the finesse of a Mack truck, a flatulent ex-nun, and a peripatetic population of babies saved from “the devil abortionists.” Is Fleur autistic or gifted? Most people find her more than a little odd, with her penchant for pinching and flapping, fondness for fanciful word play, and preoccupation with God and the void. When Fleur fails to revive a dying baby bird in her father’s garden, she sets in motion a series of events that thrusts her into the center of a culture war over the reach and limits of the human imagination.

Fleur’s obsession with black holes brings her to the attention of Stanley H. Fiske, a quantum physicist with a face like a frog and a flair for magic tricks. When Fiske brings Fleur to Caltech, she develops a controversial theory of dematerialization. But Fleur has more than physics to learn about. She must surrender precocity, pride, and a crippling attachment to the past to repair a ruptured friendship and savor the luminous lunacy of her own youth.