The Speed of Dark reveals how the author, his mother the daughter of the French Rothschild banking dynasty and his father a world-renowned cellist, broke the chain of his lineage of art, music and banking to establish an important career in science. Born in the rural Adirondacks as an American citizen after his European parents and sister narrowly escaped Nazi Germany, he spoke French before English, was raised with financial security, was exposed to Rothschild palaces visiting his French grandparents, felt as a foreigner with his Russian family in Moscow, and often felt French in his native America.