Numbers and the Embers of Truth

Numbers and the Embers of Truth

The madness for sudden wealth breaks out across the country on the day the lottery jackpot hits $1 billion. Grace Holiday tries to capitalize on the big moment with a scheme to rescue her husband’s storefront church from financial ruin, and invites the public to come and watch the lottery drawing on a jumbo screen. She coerces Jon Holiday to give a sermon beforehand, titled “Attempt a Temptation,” but he balks at this naked reach for money. Nick Sterling, an accountant obsessed with numbers, has designed his own algorithms to make lottery predictions. After five years’ research in his garage computer laboratory and just hours before the big drawing, his Grand Sterling Algorithm predicts the winning numbers. Guy Springfield, an internationally acclaimed architect, has designed his life’s dream, a mile-high skyscraper. Hoping for a way to finance its construction, he buys a lottery ticket—but is torn between designing skyscrapers and handcrafting a Japanese teahouse. Anchored in New Mexico, the story moves in the course of a single day in Albuquerque to Taos, Puerto Rico, Shanghai, Manhattan on 9/11, Denver and Fort Worth, while simultaneously traveling backwards in time from the American Southwest to San Francisco in the sixties, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Oregon and Wyoming during World War II. Numbers and the Embers of Truth tells the story of how numbers are running our lives and making us irrelevant in the cosmos. Becoming increasingly fragmented and forgetful of tradition, we feel lost and overwhelmed by problems that extend to the whole planet. By the end of the day, the fragmented stories of Nick, Guy, Grace and Jon Holiday harmonize at the storefront church where they gather together to see who will win the biggest lottery in history. A compelling story that intersects the ancient philosophy of Pythagoras and the modern age of big data and algorithms, Numbers and the Embers of Truth is a meditation on forgetfulness and temptation. “Deftly builds to a climax that’s both funny and genuinely touching.” —Kirkus Reviews •Second (revised) edition, with an Afterword by the author.