Synopses & Reviews
Set in Portland, Oregon, The Bewildered follows three high school friends who skateboard, study languages and music, and, lured by a strange woman they suspect might hold valuable secrets, illegally harvest copper wire from electrical lines outside the city. When a disastrous accident leads them on an adventure through underground tunnels and into Chinatown, they discover a remarkable group of people with unique needs and powers.
Review
"Rock's unfussy, straightforward prose style works especially well with his increasingly weird narrative. When things really start to get wacky, we are already so vested in the real world that the narrative swing is just enough to make things interesting, but not quite so much as to cause giggling." Portland Oregonian
Review
"After a compelling start to the novel....Rock crafts wonderful skateboarding scenes...including an early morning run in a multilevel parking garage." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Rock presents fresh nuances of alienation in his young characters and his depiction of teenage aimlessness is particularly accurate." Library Journal
Review
"The story goes nowhere near where you might imagine; plot connections are left dangling; mysterious and unexplained characters drift off into the night. Yet there's a cool dread about its pages that captivates for long stretches." Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Peter Rock grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the author of the novels The Bewildered, The Ambidextrist, Carnival Wolves, and This Is the Place. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and recipient of a 2000 NEA Fellowship, he now lives in Portland, Oregon, and teaches at Reed College.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Peter Rock