The Math Tutor

A Novel

Sam Butler thinks his life should be about pastern dermatitis, least common denominators and the sophomore pole vaulter from Slovenia. But it isn’t. Sam is a retired widower, who lives a quiet, well-ordered life looking after a small herd of off-the-track Thoroughbreds. Ellen Quincy is a home-schooled ‘tweener, whose family raises chickens on the other side of the highway. Lynda Stratford is a young physics professor from the nearby university. This odd and non-romantic triangle forms in the fall of 2012, and the story follows the three of them for the next six months, a half-year in which Sam’s life is turned inside-out, profoundly and perhaps forever changed. It’s a story about love and friendship, about loyalty and its breach, about what’s lost and what’s found. A story about horses, lasers, and a young girl, wondering about life, death and what follows.