The Other Einstein reads like an autobiographical journal, but it’s actually a fictionalized dramatization of the life of Mileva Maric, Albert Einstein’s first wife.

Milewa was a brilliant young Serbian woman who was admitted to study at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic, one of the world’s most prestigious scientific universities in Zürich in 1896. It was almost unheard of for women to study at universities in those days, and women scientists were even rarer. Her chosen field was Physics, and her special strength was mathematics. One of her classmates was a young physics student named Albert Einstein. Most of her peers kept their distance, but Albert seemed to like her.  She could hold her own in any scientific conversation, and she could outperform all of her classmates in math. Soon she earned the respect of her fellow students and her professors.

Albert courted Milewa, even though romance was last on her priorities. Soon his charm succeeded and they started dating, at least in secret. Eventually, though, she got pregnant out of wedlock, which at that time ruined a woman’s reputation and even caused shame for her whole family. She gave birth to her illegitimate daughter Lieserl at her parents’ house in secret. Albert never met Lieserl and he never acknowledged her existence. Lieserl died, presumably from Scarlet fever, before she was two years old.

They got married and had two more children. They collaborated on important scientific papers, including the Theory of Relativity that made Einstein famous and arguably the most recognized scientist and genius of all time.

The Other Einstein explores whether Milewa was just a sounding board for Albert, or if she did his math for him, or if she was an active participant and contributor to the famous work of Einstein without ever getting any credit.

She got lost in the enormous shadow of the famous and narcissistic Einstein, who, according to this story, cheated on her and seriously emotionally abused her. Over the years their marriage devolved and she divorced him.

I read Isaacson’s biography of Einstein in 2013. Here is my review. It is not clear whether Einstein was as abusive and self-absorbed as this novel depicts him. It certainly raises doubts about him. After reading The Other Einstein, I feel like I want to read the biography once again.