She is a housekeeper by trade, a single mom by choice, shy, brilliant, and starting a new tour of duty in the home of an aging professor. He is the professor, a mathematical genius, capable of limitless kindness and intuitive affection, but the victim of a mysterious accident that has rendered him unable to remember anything for longer than eighty minutes. Root, the housekeeper's ten-year-old son, combines his mother's sympathy with a sensitive curiosity all his own. Over the course of a few months in 1992, these three develop a profoundly affecting friendship, based on a shared love of mathematics and baseball, that will change each of their lives permanently.

Includes "Discussion Questions" ([4] p.). Translation of: Hakase no aishita sushiki. "A Picador paperback original"--Cover. "This novel was originally published in Japan by Shinchosha under the title Hakase"--T.p. verso.