A little nine-year-old boy looks down at the gymnasium floor. The room is filled with children who like and respect him, but he has no real friends. He can barely name anyone in his class, and has trouble with the simplest things - recognizing people, pretending, and knowing when people are happy or angry or sad. Much of his life has been filled with anxiety. He is out of step with the world, which to him is mostly a whirlwind that must be actively decoded and put into order. And yet he was only one of seven fourth graders in the United States to ace the National Math Olympiad. In fifth grade...

Professor Joel Goldblatt is going through a tough spell. He has an overbearing father who doesn't understand his life, a wife who understands him too well, and a daughter who is growing up too fast. Now a smart, beautiful, earnest student in his American History Class has him careening into fantasies that threaten his oncoming middle age years. It seems that his formidable book learning may be inadequate to keep his whole life from unravelling.