Mendel's Dwarf

“A grand scientific adventure and a tragic human love story…as idiosyncratic and mysterious in its own way as the first gene.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Simon Mawer writes beautifully, and the pleasure of his novel comes from the chance to watch him consider the mystery of the world, to report on the clarity with which nature speaks to us.” –The New York Times Book Review

“Furious, tender, and wittily erudite.” –The New Yorker

“Mendel’s Dwarf is intelligent, ambitious, ferocious.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“A remarkable performance. Lambert’s voice is distinctive, unique, and often downright chilling; it grabs you by the throat.” –The Washington Post

“Hypersmart and delectably stylish.” –Esquire

“A gripping, life-and-death exploration…in [an] intricate and flawless plot. In Mawer’s ingenious tale, Benedict’s life and that of his great-great-great-uncle Mendel criss-cross and interweave, heightening the reader’s understanding of both men’s minds and of the intricate beauty of fundamental genetics.” –The Times (London)

“Mendel’s Dwarf is an improbably, bittersweet, and wonderful novel about the science of genetics and life…[the] story will grow and stay with the reader long after the book is put aside.” –Detroit Free Press

“Dark, funny, bitter…the ethical dilemmas of modern genetic research in a love story that lurches from sharp humor to jaw-dropping sadness…a marvelous read.” –The Independent (London)

“An acidly funny, achingly sad love story.” –The Voice Literary Supplement

“[A] heartening—and heightening—tale.” –People

“Dangerously clever…a lively, engaging narrative. Sophisticated, tortured, and witty, Lambert is a character on the grand scale, a combination of erudition and cruelty reminiscent of Nabokov’s Humbert Humber. And like Humbert, Lambert is tortured by an impossible, unrequited love, which ultimately drives the novel to a tragic, shockingly cruel denouement. [Mawer] is a poetic, masterful explorer of hidden motives, erotic desire, divided loyalties.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Simon Mawer has written a gripping tale of scientific intrigue and moral uncertainty…In this novel, he brings to life the ethical dilemmas inherent in genetic science far more vividly than any article about cloned sheep.” –The Baltimore Sun

“Mawer weaves a story that is in turns compassionate, erotic, and angry…A wonderfully crafted, thought-provoking tale in which the science never gets in the way of the story; highly recommended.” –Library Journal

“Benedict, Mendel, and genetic science create a unique tension, with clever prose, and the author’s insight into human sadness turning it all into something truly profound.” –Booklist

“Mendel’s Dwarf is an extraordinary novel, a work of history, science, pure prose, and persuasive stunning irony, that explores the depths of the human heart. Through its narrator, a geneticist who is himself a dwarf, it give brilliant focus to the essential horrors of our century along with its narrative perfection has at its heart a dark and luminous kinship with such tales as Beauty and the Beast and Kafka’s Metamorphosis. It is a novel of dire magnificence.” -John Hawkes, author of The Frog