Theodore Mead Fegley has always been the smartest person he knows. By age twelve he was in high school, and by fifteen he was attending a top-ranking university. And now, at the tender age of eighteen, he's on the verge of proving the Riemann hypothesis, a mathematical equation that has mystified academics for almost 150 years. But only days before graduation, Mead suddenly packs his bags and flees home to rural Illinois. What caused him to flee remains a mystery to all but Mead and a classmate, whose quest for success has turned into a dangerous obsession.
At home, Mead finds little solace. His past ghosts haunt him, his parents don't understand him, and his dreams seem crushed forever. As he embarks on a new life's journey-learning the family business of selling furniture and embalming the dead-he disappoints and surprises all who knew him as "the young Fegley genius."
Equal parts academic thriller and poignant coming-of-age story, Life after Genius follows the remarkable journey of a young man who must discover that the heart may know what the head has yet to learn.
