Ratner's Star
Encyclopedia
Ratner's Star is a 1976 novel
by Don DeLillo
. It relates the story of a child prodigy
mathematician
who arrives at a secret installation to work on the problem of deciphering a mysterious message that appears to come from outer space. The novel is told in two parts; the first is a conventional narrative, the second is less so.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
. It relates the story of a child prodigy
Child prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...
mathematician
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
who arrives at a secret installation to work on the problem of deciphering a mysterious message that appears to come from outer space. The novel is told in two parts; the first is a conventional narrative, the second is less so.