Bewilderment
From the million-copy global bestselling author of The Overstory
-
- $15.99
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021**
A father. A son. A bewildering world.
Discover the breath-taking new novel from the million-copy bestselling author of The Overstory.
'The love between son and father has an emotional truth that wrings the heart' Guardian
Theo Byrne is a promising young scientist 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. But after a violent outburst from Robin at school, the strength of their close bond will be tested to its limits...
What can a father do, when those around him refuse to understand his rare and troubled child? And how can he reveal to his boy the truth about our beautiful, bewildered world?
'This book had me in tears' Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch
'Refreshing, original and moving' Evening Standard
'It is impossible to deny the importance of Powers' message' Sunday Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pulitzer winner Powers (The Overstory) offers up a marvelous story of experimental neurotherapy and speculations about alien life. Astrophysicist Theo Byrne simulates worlds outside Earth's solar system as part of lobbying efforts for a new spaceborne telescope. As a single parent in Madison, Wis., his work takes a back seat—his wife, Aly, mother of their nine-year-old, Robin, died two years earlier. Theo shares his fictional descriptions of life on exoplanets with Robin in the form of bedtime stories, and they bond over a Trumpian administration's hostility to scientific research. Theo allows Robin to protest neglect of endangered species at the state capitol, despite Robin's volatile behavior. He's been diagnosed with Asperger's, OCD, and ADHD, and Theo refuses to give him psychoactive medication ("Life is something we need to stop correcting," goes Theo's new "crackpot theory"). More cutting-edge is the neurofeedback program run by an old friend of Aly's, who trains Robin to model his emotions from a record saved of Aly's brain activity. It works, for a while—the tragic, bittersweet plot has some parallels to Flowers to Algernon. The planetary descriptions grow a bit repetitive and don't gain narrative traction, but in the end, Powers transforms the wrenching story into something sublime. Though it's not his masterpiece, it shows the work of a master.
