Ranging from quantum mechanics to eating disorders to the nature of fiction, this is a breathtaking interrogation of family, connection and memory

Transcription ends with an epilogue. It’s a letter, or at least an extract from a letter, written by Leopold Blaschka, a 19th-century Bohemia-born artist who, with his son Rudolf, crafted intricate and breathtakingly realistic models of flowers, plants and sea creatures made out of glass. So astounding was their technique, so uncanny, that sceptics assumed they must be using secret devices. “It is not so,” he insisted. “We have the touch. My son Rudolf has more than I have because he is my son and the touch increases in every generation.” Until this point, Blaschka hasn’t been referenced by name even once.…