From the Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Overstory, an intense, thrilling novel about a near fatal accident and its devastating consequences
Richard Powers is the author of twelve novels, including Orfeo (which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), The Echo Maker, The Time of Our Singing, Galatea 2.2 and Plowing the Dark. He is the recipient of a MacArthur grant and the National Book Award, and has been a Pulitzer Prize and four-time NBCC finalist. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
A truck jackknifes off an "arrow straight country road" near Kearney, Nebr., in Powers's ninth novel, becoming the catalyst for a painstakingly rendered minuet of self-reckoning. The accident puts the truck's 27-year-old driver, Mark Schluter, into a 14-day coma. When he emerges, he is stricken with Capgras syndrome: he's unable to match his visual and intellectual identifications with his emotional ones. He thinks his sister, Karin, isn't actually his sister-she's an imposter (the same goes for Mark's house). A shattered and worried Karin turns to Gerald Weber, an Oliver Sacks-like figure who writes bestsellers about neurological cases, but Gerald's inability to help Mark, and bad reviews of his latest book, cause him to wonder if he has become a "neurological opportunist." Then there are the mysteries of Mark's nurse's aide, Barbara Gillespie, who is secretive about her past and seems to be much more intelligent than she's willing to let on, and the meaning of a cryptic note left on Mark's nightstand the night he was hospitalized. MacArthur fellow Powers (Gold Bug Variations, etc.) masterfully charts the shifting dynamics of Karin's and Mark's relationship, and his prose-powerful, but not overbearing-brings a sorrowful energy to every page. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
When Karin's brother emerges from a coma after a serious car accident, he refuses to acknowledge Karin as his sister. Powerful stuff from an award-winning author. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
"Among his most stunning yet: profound and heartbreaking" *
Financial Times *
"A psychological thriller, a flawed love story, a study of
authenticity in emotions, a commentary on America's relations with
itself and the world, humanity and ecollogy... undoubtedly
magnificent" * The Times *
"There's no other way to say it: Richard Powers is a genius" * Time
Out *
"An exhilarating narrative feat... He is a formidable talent, and
this is a lucid, fiercely entertaining novel" -- Sebastian Faulks *
Washington Post *
"Richard Powers is the most intellectually stimulating novelist at
work in the English language today...[He writes] luminous prose.
Sentence after sentence has the razor-sharp quality of aphorism
about the weird wired world we have made" * Sunday Times *
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
