Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen Book

This is Jane Hawking's story of her 25 year marriage to Stephen Hawking, who is arguably the most famous physicist since Newton. Stephen Hawking's improbable and inspiring story is well known -- how he made significant scientific breakthroughs and achieved great fame and celebrity despite being the victim of a debilitating and progressive neurological disease (motor-neuron or Lou Gehrig's disease) which eventually took away almost all of his ability to do anything for himself but to think. He may be the only scientist alive whose name is known to millions of people, and has achieved a celebrity status usually reserved for rock stars and accomplished athletes.

Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time sold 25 million copies, an astounding and truly incredible fact considering the arcane nature of its subject matter and the fact that it is not dumbed down physics, but is actually quite hard to read and even harder to understand. It has been said that never in history has a book been bought by so many people who did not read it. That is probably a testament to the enduring mark Stephen has made on people by the force of his determination and unbreakable spirit in the face of great adversity.

Also well known, and the subject of much gossip and speculation, is the story of how Stephen divorced Jane after 25 years of marriage to live with and then marry one of his nurses. Jane Hawking's book is circumspect and honest. Those looking for salacious details will be disappointed. But those looking for an insightful examination of what makes marriages and relationships succeed (and fail) will be richly rewarded.

Jane Hawking writes that her story "would be quite ordinary, quite common to most people's lives, were it not for two factors: motor-neuron disease and geniuis." In other words, but for the fact that she was married to an iconic figure who was both a towering intellect and a devastatingly disabled person. Both of these factors did put unusual stresses on the marriage. While Jane describes these unusual difficulties, this also is an ordinary story, dealing with many of the common-place problems and joys that people encounter as they try to forge a life together.

Some of these problems and joys, like shared interests and clashing beliefs, a spouse's annoying and endearing characteritstics, helpful relatives and toxic ones, are most likely found in virtually all relationships. Others are also common, if not pervasive. For instance, the stresses caused when one partner overshadows the other in accomplishment and attention. Added to this was the demanding nature of Stephen's illness, which consumed much of Jane's time and energies for many of the years of their marriage, and the difficulty of trying to raise three children while caring for a disabled husband. Jane's struggle to find her own career and to feel like something more than an appendage to a famous spouse mirrors the struggle that many couples grapple with -- how to be a unit or team while still being individuals.

Bittersweet in places, sometimes downright sad, nonethess, at bottom it is inspiring, for it is the story of not one person of indomitable will and soaring spirit who survived great difficulties, but two.