The cleverest thing about this book is what it’s called: It’s always a neat trick when, by altering just one word in a well-known title, you can achieve the most apt one for your own. Certainly Jon-Jon Goulian is clever, academically gifted (Columbia University as an undergraduate, New York University Law School) and adept at obtaining fast-track jobs (clerk to a federal judge, assistant to legendary New York Review of Books founding editor Robert Silvers).
And his immediate family, with his hematologist father, superachieving siblings and other assorted relatives maternal and paternal, is a eugenicist’s dream come true: He was a high school soccer star as well as star student. He didn’t have to rely on mere DNA either: When his father wasn’t advocating education and achievement, there was always the firsthand wisdom and advice showered on him by his maternal grandfather, none other than the redoubtable philosopher, all-round savant and wisest of sages Sidney Hook.
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