Bewilderment - Hardcover

by Richard Powers (Author)

The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He's also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin's emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother's brain...

With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son's ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers's most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

Back Jacket

Praise for The Overstory by Richard Powers

"It changed how I thought about the Earth and our place in it....It changed how I see things and that's always, for me, a mark of a book worth reading."
-- Barack Obama

"Monumental...A gigantic fable of genuine truths."
-- Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times Book Review, cover review

"Should be mandatory reading the world over."
-- Emilia Clarke

"Extraordinary...What was happening to his characters passed into my conscience, like alcohol into the bloodstream, and left a feeling behind of grief or guilt, even after I put it down."
-- Benjamin Markovits, The Guardian

"Transformative and wise."
-- Naomi Klein

"Dazzlingly written...Powers is as brilliant on trees and arborescence as he has been in past novels on music, AI, and neuroscience."
-- Robert Macfarlane

"The best book I've read in ten years...It's a mind-opening fiction, and it connects us all in a very positive way to the things that we have to do if we want to regain our planet."
-- Emma Thompson