I like historical fiction and I like maths. So when I read about this on the Walter Scott prize instagram, I bought a copy immediately.
Here’s the blurb …
Howard Hinton and his family are living in Japan, escaping from a scandal. Hinton’s obsession is his work, his voyages into mathematical pure space, into the fourth dimension, but also his wife and sons, each of whom are entangled in the strange and unknown landscapes of Hinton’s science fictions.
In a bravura and startling meeting of real and philosophical elements, Mark Blacklock has created a ravishing period piece of late-Victorian social, scientific and domestic life. Hinton is about extraordinary discoveries, and terrible choices. It is about people who discover and map other realms, and what the implications might be for those of us left behind.
I can’t say that I was that taken with it. I did try to read it while I was on holiday in Broome, so not conducive to concentration.
Here’s a much better review.