In 1902 Lieserl Maric was born, the illegitimate daughter of Albert Einstein and his then girl-friend and later wife Mileva Maric. Supposedly she died of scarlet fever at age two, but no details are known. The fact of her existence only became public when letters written by Einstein to Mileva Maric at the time appeared.

Anna McGrail’s novel "Mrs. Einstein" is based on this true event and tells the story of the life of Lieserl as it could have been. Lieserl is eight years old when her mother visits her for the last time on a farm near Novi Sad in present day Serbia where Lieserl lives with her resolute single foster mother Desanka. Lieserl has no idea that the distinguished lady is her mother nor that the small blonde boy with her is her own brother Hans Albert. The truth is revealed to her only a few years later, and from that moment on her life is ruled by one goal: to take revenge on her now famous father who kept her from her mother.

She came up with a very special act of revenge: to beat her father in his own domain. She inherited her mother’s talent for mathematics and uses it to realize her plan. She throws herself on her studies and keeps bumping into the social conventions of the time that didn’t tolerate women working in science. The book tells a fictive story based on real persons. The main characters are two very different women. One of them seems to fit (almost) perfectly into her time, the other doesn’t. The novel is an excellent portrait of society in the first half of the 20th century, especially as far as the role of women is concerned. For example Lieserl can’t get out scientific journals from the library herself but has to ask a man to do it for her. What I didn’t like was the reason Lieserl started her studies. Why can’t a woman just enjoy science and be eager for knowledge for knowledge’s sake but has to be motivated by low reasons like the urge for revenge? This aspect of the book is not quite understandable. Still, "Mrs. Einstein" is well worth reading among other things for the scientific facts that are woven into the story and never seem dry or textbook-like.