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Bewilderment
400 pages
A fiercely tender exploration of a father's love for his neurodivergent son, set against the backdrop of a dying, beautiful planet.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like standing under a vast, starry sky while holding the hand of someone you are terrified to lose. It is a deeply intimate, sorrowful, and awe-struck experience that balances the cold expanses of astrobiology with the fierce, burning warmth of a father's love. The prose is lyrical and precise, weaving scientific wonder into the fragile daily realities of raising a neurodivergent child in a world on the brink of ecological collapse. The pace is steady and contemplative, pulling you through an emotional arc that swells with transcendent hope before breaking your heart. It will deeply resonate with readers who appreciate literary fiction that wrestles with massive existential questions, offering a beautiful, devastating meditation on how to live on an imperiled planet.
- Mood
- awe-struck
- sorrowful
- intimate
- fragile
- Tone
- earnest
- tender
- melancholic
- urgent
- philosophical
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- eco-grief · fierce parental love · neurodivergence and empathy · the fragility of Earth · mourning and memory
- The writing
- Lyrical, precise, and soaring, blending scientific exactitude with deep poetic empathy.
- The arc
- Moves from desperate, protective anxiety into a transcendent, fragile hope, before descending into inevitable, heartbreaking loss.
- Who it's for
- Readers who appreciate literary fiction that wrestles with massive existential questions through a deeply intimate, emotional lens.
Content notes
- grief and loss of a spouse
- child emotional distress
- animal death and extinction
- medical experimentation
About the book
"A heartrending new novel from the and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. "Richard Powers, whose novels combine the wonders of science with the marvels of art, astonishes us in different ways with each new book." -Heller McAlpin, NPR Books. 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?"--
Description from Open Library.
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