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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionseBook editionsThe Echo Makerby Richard Powers
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Winner of the 2006 National Book Award
The Echo Maker is "a remarkable novel, from one of our greatest novelists, and a book that will change all who read it" (Booklist, starred review).
On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, twenty-seven-year-old Mark Schluter has a near-fatal car accident. His older sister, Karin, returns reluctantly to their hometown to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. But when Mark emerges from a coma, he believes that this woman--who looks, acts, and sounds just like his sister--is really an imposter. When Karin contacts the famous cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber for help, he diagnoses Mark as having Capgras syndrome. The mysterious nature of the disease, combined with the strange circumstances surrounding Mark's accident, threatens to change all of their lives beyond recognition. In The Echo Maker, Richard Powers proves himself to be one of our boldest and most entertaining novelists. Richard Powers is the author of ten novels, including Generosity, Gain, The Time of Our Singing, Galatea 2.2, and Plowing the Dark. The Echo Maker won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Powers has received a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lannan Literary Award. He lives in Illinois. Winner of the National Book Award Pulitzer Prize Finalist A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the YearA Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year Longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Set against the Platte River's massive spring migrationsone of the greatest spectacles in natureThe Echo Maker is a mystery that explores the improvised human self and the even more precarious brain that splits us from and joins us to the rest of creation. On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, twenty-seven-year-old Mark Schluter flips his truck in a near-fatal accident. His older sister Karin, his only near kin, returns reluctantly to their hometown to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. But when he emerges from a protracted coma, Mark believes that this womanwho looks, acts, and sounds just like his sisteris really an identical impostor. Shattered by her brothers refusal to recognize her, Karin contacts the cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber, famous for his case histories describing the infinitely bizarre worlds of brain disorder. Weber recognizes Mark as a rare case of Capgras Syndromethe delusion that people in one's life are doubles or impostersand eagerly investigates. What he discovers in Mark slowly undermines even his own sense of being. Meanwhile, Mark, armed only with a note let by an anonymous witness, attempts to learn what happened the night of his inexplicable accident. The truth of that evening will change the lives of all three beyond recognition. Winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize Finalist "A wise and elegant post-9/11 novel . . . As the features of life after 9/11 come into focusthe engagement in Afghanistan, 'that bleak, first anniversary' of the attacks, the march to war in IraqPowers accomplishes something magnificent, no facile conflation of personal catastrophe with national calamity, but a lovely essay on perseverance in all its forms."Colson Whitehead, The New York Times Book Review "A wise and elegant post-9/11 novel . . . It avoids some of the now familiar features of the genre . . . The Echo Maker is not an elegy for How We Used to Live or a salute to Coming to Grips, but a quiet exploration of how we survive, day to day . . . The Echo Maker joins my Powers favorites through the admirable harmony he achieves between his rhetorical strategieson the life of the sandhill cranes, on the furrowed dynamism of the brainand the travails of Mark, Karin and Weber as they try to navigate their altered territories . . . Part of the joy of reading Powers over the years has been his capacity for revelation. His scientific discourses point to how the world works, but the struggles of his characters, whether down-and-out misfits like Mark or well-heeled magicians like Weber, help us understand how we work. And that's where the setting2002, early 2003comes in. As the features of life after 9/11 come into focusthe engagement in Afghanistan, 'that bleak, first anniversary' of the attacks, the march to war in IraqPowers accomplishes something magnificent, no facile conflation of personal catastrophe with national calamity, but a lovely essay on perseverance in all its forms."Colson Whitehead, The New York Times Book Review "Richard Powers has a lot of ideas: complex, articulate, deeply informed ideas about artificial intelligence, virtual reality, relativity, genetics, music and much more . . . Powers has established himself as one of our most praised as well as one of our most prolific writers of fiction. . . . Powers is not only adept at crafting large-scale narrative and symbolic structures; he is also a remarkably gifted aphorist, a lyrical nature writer and a sharp observer of human situations . . . It is telling that Powers is typically praised for his intellect . . . His capacity to elucidate scientific ideas and speculate about their larger meanings is indeed impressive . . . Powers's feeling for this material is exhilarating, his sense of wonder infectious . . . Powers's characters tend to be paragons, intellectual or ethical, but Mark, in particular, is convincingly imagined, with a fine ear for his verbal and mental rhythms . . . Powers's eye for social detail remains as sharp as ever . . . The range and magnitude of Powers's talents are not in question . . . Powers's descriptions . . . are sublime, as is his vision, woven into the novel's metaphorical texture, of the human species as but another evanescent episode in life's vast flow. The cycling of time, the interconnectedness of all living things, the mind-blowingindeed, mind-creatingmagnificence of nature, the obligation to live humbly and responsibly: All of Powers's great themes return here."William Deresiewicz, The Nation
"A grand novelgrand in its reach, grand in its themes, grand in its patterning . . . If Powers were an American writer of the nineteenth century . . . he'd probably be the Herman Melville of Moby-Dick. His picture is that big."Margaret Atwood, The New York Review of Books "Powers may well be one of the smartest novelists now writing . . . In The Echo Maker Powers hopes to plumb the nature of consciousness, and he does so with such alert passion that we come to recognize in his quest the novel's abiding themeWhat it means to be human will forever elude us."Albert Mobilio, Los Angeles Book Review “His philosophical musings have the energy of a thriller, and he gives lyrical, haunting life to the landscape of the Great Plains.”The New Yorker
"The Echo Maker is a mystery. But it is a Rich Synopsis:Winner of the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction
The Echo Maker is "a remarkable novel, from one of our greatest novelists, and a book that will change all who read it" (Booklist, starred review).
On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, twenty-seven-year-old Mark Schluter has a near-fatal car accident. His older sister, Karin, returns reluctantly to their hometown to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. But when Mark emerges from a coma, he believes that this woman--who looks, acts, and sounds just like his sister--is really an imposter. When Karin contacts the famous cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber for help, he diagnoses Mark as having Capgras syndrome. The mysterious nature of the disease, combined with the strange circumstances surrounding Mark's accident, threatens to change all of their lives beyond recognition. In The Echo Maker, Richard Powers proves himself to be one of our boldest and most entertaining novelists. Synopsis:On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, 27-year-old Mark Schluter flips his truck in a near-fatal accident. His older sister Karin, his only near kin, returns reluctantly to their hometown to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. But when he emerges from a protracted coma, Mark believes that this woman-who looks, acts, and sounds just like his sister-is really an identical impostor. Shattered by her brother's refusal to recognize her, Karin contacts the cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber, famous for his case histories describing the infinitely bizarre worlds of brain disorder. Weber recognizes Mark as a rare case of Capgras Syndrome, a doubling delusion, and eagerly investigates. What he discovers in Mark slowly undermines even his own sense of being. Meanwhile, Mark, armed only with a note left by an anonymous witness, attempts to learn what happened the night of his inexplicable accident. The truth of that evening will change the lives of all three beyond recognition. Set against the Platte River's massive spring migrations-one of the greatest spectacles in nature-The Echo Maker is a gripping mystery that explores the improvised human self and the even more precarious brain that splits us from and joins us to the rest of creation. About the AuthorRichard Powers is the author of nine novels and has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Historical Fiction. He lives in Illinois. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
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