Spending lazy weekends wandering through bookstores is one of my absolute favourite activities. I have picked up some fabulous and fascinating books in the countless hours I have spent scouring the bookshelves of everything from the big chain bookstores to the small and curious shops. And it was in one of those small shops that I discovered what is probably the strangest book I have ever read. Driving Mr Albert is the story of two men and one brain driving across America�s west.
At the heart of Driving Mr Albert is the story of pathologist Thomas Harvey, who has kept Einstein�s brain in a large glass jar for almost fifty years. Pateriti begins with a description like something out of Mary Shelly�s Frankenstein. In 1955 Harvey, without anyone�s permission, removed Einstein�s brain by cutting open his skull, snipping here and there and then taking out the gelatinous mass with his hands. Allegedly, the removal was an act of science intent on revealing something about the nature of genius. But the only work Harvey ever conducted was to send parts of the brain to other researchers who conducted some rather inconclusive tests and the mystery of genius remains a mystery.
Harvey�s life, after his one spectacular brain-robbing act, went downhill. The removal of the brain caused outrage both within the Einstein family and among medical professionals keen to get their own hands on a piece of the brain. Harvey was sacked from his job as a pathologist and ended up making plastic shelving until his retirement.
Pateriti brings Harvey to life as a slow talking (one of his favourite expressions is �well� which he prounces with a drawl: �Way-ell�), slow walking, old man who could be anyone�s friendly grandfather. It�s hard to believe that this octogenarian is the keeper of one of the most famous brains in history.
The story really takes off when Pateriti gets on the road with Harvey for a drive across the American west. For Harvey, it� s an opportunity to give the brain up at last. For Pateriti it�s also an opportunity to put his skill as a journalist to work in describing in entertaining detail some of the colourful characters that make up the American psyche.
Pateriti is the chauffeur of both Harvey and the brain. The great brain that once came up with Relativity travels in a tupperware container which is, itself, in a duffle bag. Pateriti�s descriptions of the brain travelling from the back of a car boot to the top of motel room�s TV has its comic moments. But it also leads to some tense scenes for the chauffeur as he ponders on what exactly he would say if the car was ever pulled over and he was asked to open the boot and explain what he�s doing with chopped up portions of brain in his boot.
One of the first stops on this road trip is an encounter with beat legend William Burroughs just before his death. Harvey and Burroughs�s rap about drugs, crime and more drugs. The encounter borders on the absurd and Paterit conveys this bizarre meeting with suitably over the top, but always entertaining, prose.
Michael Pateriti avoids the usual pitfalls of being the �objective� observer by putting himself squarely and fairly in the plot of this biography cum road book and the story he tells is all the better for it. We are treated to some of the best passages from Pateriti�s perspective. The first person narrative is especially useful in detailing Pateriti�s increasing frustrations with Harvey on the road, Pateriti�s dislike at being merely the chauffeur and his unhappiness at not being shown the brain.
Pateriti�s frustrations come to a head when they stop at Las Vegas. In the funniest (of many) chapter of the book he describes his visit to a casino. He talks to several punters, asking them if they know Einstein. The replies vary from the profoundly ignorant to the plain ridiculous. One reply to Paterit�s question is worth framing: �I haven�t seen him come in tonight.�
Other road stops also provide more opportunities to reveal the bizarre side of the American psyche. This includes meeting the man who markets Einstein�s name for everything from T-shirts to computer ads to an encounter with a Pakistani motel clerk which borders on farce.
The final stop, and one that the reader has been waiting two hundred pages for, is to learn how (and to who)Harvey finally hands over the brain after being its keeper for almost a half century. If Driving Mr Albert wasn�t a non-fiction book it would be a hard story to swallow. But Pateniti�s skill at describing both the lives of his main subject, Harvey, and Einsten�s brain, as well as the some of the most colourful characters of the American West make this an entertaining journey for the reader to take. It also left me wondering what it would be like to be a discombobulated brain floating around in a tupperware container. I guess there are worse ways to reach your own personal 'end' of the road.
