Review_NONFICTION
68 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ JULY 29, 2019
Thomas Edison with his phonograph in 1878, as seen in Edison by
Edmund Morris (reviewed on p. 70).Math Makers:
The Lives and Works of 50
Famous Mathematicians
Alfred S. Posamentier and Christian Spreitzer.
Prometheus, $25 (448p) ISBN 978-1-63388-520-2
Posamentier and Spreitzer, math teachers
and coauthors of The Mathematics of Everyday
Life, trace the lives of great mathematicians,
including household names such as
Archimedes, Euclid, Fibonnaci, Gödel,
Newton, and lesser-known but still sig-
nificant figures. The authors provide
each with a short biography, delighting
in personal idiosyncrasies. For example,
Georg Cantor, originator of set theory,
published pamphlets arguing that Francis
Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s works; John
von Neumann, responsible for game
theory, could recite Goethe’s Faust in its
entirety; and G.H. Hardy, a number
theory maven, could write numbers from
one to a million at the age of two. Wisely,
Posamentier and Spreitzer acknowledge
when the math is too advanced to do
justice to, admitting that fully explaining
Boolean algebra would require another
book, or that they can give only a “vague
idea” of Sofia Kovalevskaya’s work on
partial differential equations. Though few
women enter the book’s pantheon, the
authors are careful to note the obstacles
female mathematicians faced. Posamentier
and Spreitzer’s affection for their field is
winning, and while fans of math and
intellectual puzzles in general can enjoy
trying to solve the proofs, the less ambi-
tious will enjoy the brisk and colorful
biographies. (Jan.)The Broken Road:
George Wallace and a Daughter’s
Journey to Reconciliation
Peggy Wallace Kennedy. Bloomsbury, $28
(304p) ISBN 978-1-63557-365-7
In this thoughtful, evenhanded debut,
Kennedy, the daughter of former Alabama
governor George Wallace, reflects on her
life with the staunch segregationist.
Wallace (1919–1998) graduated law school
at 23 and married 16-year-old Lurleen
Burns in 1943. He ran for governor in
1958, losing to his opponent’s “promises
to keep Alabama white,” which, according
to Kennedy, prompted his racist turn anda vow “never to be ‘out-niggered again.’ ”
He denied having said it, but Kennedy
acknowledges his racist actions, remem-
bering when as governor “Daddy stood
in the schoolhouse door” in 1963 at the
University of Alabama in an effort to stop
the desegregation of the school. Kennedy
then recalls her father’s 1972 presidential
run (she notes the similarity between
Trump’s slogan and her father’s “Stand up
for America”) as well as an attempted
assassination in 1972 that left him a
paraplegic; years later he “repented for his
past actions with both words and deeds.”
In 2015, Kennedy, marching with Alabama
civil rights activist Donzaleigh Abernathy,
“wonders how the course of history might
have changed if Martin Luther King and
Daddy had known these two women would
walk hand in hand.” Kennedy’s astute
memoir also serves as a probing record of
politics and racism in the South. (Dec.)Becoming Eve:
My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox
Rabbi to Transgender Woman
Abby Chava Stein. Seal, $28 (272p) ISBN 978-
1-58005-916-9
Trans activist Stein, a former memberof the Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic
Jewish community in
Brooklyn, plainly recalls her
strict childhood and struggle
to come out as transgender in
an uneven debut that’s more
focused on religion than iden-
tity. Stein, born in 1991, was
her parents’ first “boy,” though
she always secretly believed
she was a girl. For Hasidic
boys, “every minute spent on
anything other than Jewish
studies is wasted time,” Stein
writes, focusing her narrative
on her study of the Torah and
Talmudic laws. One of the
most captivating sections
concerns her first sexual
experiences, as a teenager
with a male classmate. Her
recollections of their clandes-
tine encounters have more
depth than later chapters,
which feel oddly rushed as
they recall life-altering
moments (her marriage to a
woman named Fraidy, the
birth of their son when Stein was 20, her
exit, in the last chapter, from the Hasidic
community). It is only in the epilogue, set
in 2015, that Stein comes out as trans-
gender to her father, who rejects her, and
mentions that she has started hormone
replacement therapy. This is a valuable
story but a frustratingly structured one;
readers who wish to learn about Stein’s life
as a transgender woman won’t find a
wealth of detail here. (Nov.)Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge
Sheila Weller. FSG/Crichton, $28 (416p)
ISBN 978-0-374-28223-3
Actress and author Carrie Fisher
(1956–2016) is celebrated for her wit and
strength in this comprehensive biography
by journalist Weller (The News Sorority).
Fisher—daughter of actors Debbie
Reynolds and Eddie Fisher—got her break
at 19 when she was cast as Princess Leia in
Star Wars, a role that Weller says turned
Fisher into a “feminist action hero.” The
author does a fine job charting the light
and dark aspects of Fisher’s story, which
includes a career as a bestselling author and
battles with drug addiction and bipolar
disorder. Weller discusses Fisher’s cocaineNonfiction