The author of The Overstory returns with an arresting tale about the need to keep those we love safe that follows a widowed young father, faced with the task of bringing up his son who has a little-understood health condition.
Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month for October 2022
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021
Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son Robin is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade, for smashing his friend's face with a metal thermos.
What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, while all the while fostering his son's desperate campaign to help save this one.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781529115253
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 234 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 20 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Mingling ideas about neurodivergence, astrobiology, political radicalisation and environmental collapse... there is no question that Powers is a novelist of considerable, well, powers.... Bewilderment is both touching and finely written' - Telegraph
'Reading a Powers novel is like boarding a tour bus when you have a single day to explore an unfamiliar city. Bewilderment, his Booker-longlisted new novel, is a hop-on, hop-off trip around astrobiology, climate breakdown and neuro-feedback therapy... it is impossible to deny the importance of Powers's message' - Sunday Times
'Powers is a former computer programmer whose ideas-rich fiction grounds the grandest scientific concepts in everyday experience. For him, environmental crisis means that we must share the pain not just of fellow-humans but other life-forms threatened by our botched stewardship of Earth... Powers' unchained imagination stretches its empathy circle from lichen to nebulae, in finely crafted prose' - Financial Times
'Refreshing, original and moving' - Evening Standard
'Powers has the rare gift of being able to deal with big ideas while keeping you interested in the lives and emotions of his characters' - Sebastian Faulks
'A heartfelt cry for climate awareness, with fantastical digressions to other planets and a rueful celebration of our own' - Guardian
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“Magnificent!”
Thank you to the publisher for this early review copy.
I have never read Richard Powers before even though The Overstory has been repeatedly recommended to me, clearly something I should now correct.
This book is...
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“Unforgettable”
*Thank you to NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review*
Where do I begin? 'Bewilderment' was a beautiful book - moving, transformative in its prose, and deeply luminous. After...
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“Surely destined to be one of the best loved novels of 2021 - a book which will stimulates your mind, challenges your conscience and move your heart”
"They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Both search for facts beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled... More
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