David Leavitt visits 1913 England in The Indian Clerk

Novelist David Leavitt's latest book tackles an intriguing topic— gay mathematicians in early 20th century England. In The Indian Clerk, Leavitt focuses on G. H. Hardy, a real life mathematician who fell in love with Srinivasa Ramanujan, an Indian man who had a significant influence on mathematics despite not having any formal education in the subject.

Leavitt takes another look at a relationship where the two participants come from different classes, a story that may ring familiar to those who've read Leavitt's While England Sleeps. However, in The Indian Clerk Leavitt adds exotification and imperialist attitudes to the class divide. The story also offers some glimpses into the era, exploring the politics of a pacifist organization Hardy belonged to, antiwar activist Bertrand Russell and a secret society, the Cambridge Apostles. I'm sure our British readers are familiar with this era, but my history teachers never discussed that part of the era, making The Indian Clerk sound fascinating just for the historical perspective.

However, Leavitt also finds two very interesting subjects to write about. Reading their Wikipedia pages, Hardy and Ramanujan sound like fascinating personalities. If Leavitt succeeds in telling a story of a true meeting of the minds, The Indian Clerk could be a must-read novel that shows that Leavitt's grown quite a bit as a writer.