Peter Selgin was cursed/blessed with an unusual childhood. The son of Italian immigrants--his father an electronics inventor and a mother so good looking UPS drivers swerved off their routes to see her--Selgin spent his formative years scrambling among the hat factory ruins of a small Connecticut town, visiting doting--and dotty--relatives in the "old world," watching mental giants clash at Mensa gatherings, enduring Pavlovian training sessions...