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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Salem Main Library | Powers, R. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic Powers, R. 2006 | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Mount Angel Public Library | POWERS, R. Echo | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Newberg Public Library | FICTION POWERS | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
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 neurologistGerald 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.
The Echo Maker is the winner of the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction.
Summary
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.
Author Notes
Richard Powers was born on June 18, 1957 in Evanston, Illinois. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After graduation, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts and worked as a computer programmer and freelance data processor. One day he saw August Sander's 1914 black-and-white photograph of three Westerwald farm boys heading to a dance at the Museum of Fine Arts. This photograph inspired Powers to quit his job and try writing a novel.
Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance was published in 1985. His other works include Prisoner's Dilemma, The Gold Bug Variations, Operation Wandering Soul, Galatea 2.2, Plowing the Dark, The Time of Our Singing, and Generosity: An Enhancement. He received numerous awards including the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction for Gain, the National Book Award for The Echo Maker, and Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Overstory: A Novel.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Richard Powers was born on June 18, 1957 in Evanston, Illinois. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After graduation, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts and worked as a computer programmer and freelance data processor. One day he saw August Sander's 1914 black-and-white photograph of three Westerwald farm boys heading to a dance at the Museum of Fine Arts. This photograph inspired Powers to quit his job and try writing a novel.
Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance was published in 1985. His other works include Prisoner's Dilemma, The Gold Bug Variations, Operation Wandering Soul, Galatea 2.2, Plowing the Dark, The Time of Our Singing, and Generosity: An Enhancement. He received numerous awards including the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction for Gain, the National Book Award for The Echo Maker, and Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Overstory: A Novel.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (8)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A truck jackknifes off an "arrow straight country road" near Kearney, Nebr., in Powers's ninth novel, becoming the catalyst for a painstakingly rendered minuet of self-reckoning. The accident puts the truck's 27-year-old driver, Mark Schluter, into a 14-day coma. When he emerges, he is stricken with Capgras syndrome: he's unable to match his visual and intellectual identifications with his emotional ones. He thinks his sister, Karin, isn't actually his sister-she's an imposter (the same goes for Mark's house). A shattered and worried Karin turns to Gerald Weber, an Oliver Sacks-like figure who writes bestsellers about neurological cases, but Gerald's inability to help Mark, and bad reviews of his latest book, cause him to wonder if he has become a "neurological opportunist." Then there are the mysteries of Mark's nurse's aide, Barbara Gillespie, who is secretive about her past and seems to be much more intelligent than she's willing to let on, and the meaning of a cryptic note left on Mark's nightstand the night he was hospitalized. MacArthur fellow Powers (Gold Bug Variations, etc.) masterfully charts the shifting dynamics of Karin's and Mark's relationship, and his prose-powerful, but not overbearing-brings a sorrowful energy to every page. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The theme of cognitive disorder, variously explored in Powers's forbiddingly brainy earlier fiction, is the central subject of his eerie, accomplished ninth novel. An image of sand-hill cranes migrating from Nebraska's Platte River sets the scene, where 20-something slaughterhouse-worker Mark Schluter crashes his truck in an adjacent field, sustaining severe bodily and neurological injuries. Repeating an all-too-familiar pattern, Mark's older sister Karin leaves her job and life in Sioux City to be with him--stirring up memories of their shared childhood in thrall to a violent, alcoholic father and religious zealot mother. But Mark (whose inchoate, terrified viewpoint is rendered in a rich mlange of semi-coherent thoughts and visions) no longer knows Karin; he is, in fact, convinced she's a stranger masquerading as his sister. Eventually, he's diagnosed as suffering from "Capgras syndrome . . . one of a family of misidentification delusions." But Mark's symptoms elude the pattern familiar to Gerald Weber, a prominent New York cognitive neurologist and bestselling author, summoned by Karin's importuning letter. Weber's "tests" fail to relieve or explain Mark's delusive paranoia, and Karin turns first to the siblings' former childhood friend Daniel Riegel, long since estranged from Mark, now a deeply committed environmental activist; then to her former lover Robert Karsh, a manipulative charmer who has risen to local prominence as a successful developer. Contrasts thus established seem pat, but Powers explores the mystery surrounding Mark through suspenseful sequences involving his raucous drinking buddies (who may know more about his accident than they're telling); compassionate caregiver Barbara Gillespie; and the unidentified observer who left a cryptic message about Mark's ordeal at the patient's hospital bedside. Issues of environmental stewardship and rapine, compulsions implicit in migratory patterns and Weber's changing concept of the fluid, susceptible nature of the self are sharply dramatized in a fascinating dance of ideas. One of our best novelists (The Time of Our Singing, 2003, etc.) once again extends his unparalleled range. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Late one night, near the Platte River in Kearney, Nebraska, where the sandhill cranes pause every year in their spectacular migration, Mark Schluter flips his truck. Brain damaged, he develops Capgras syndrome, which makes him think that his sister, Karin, is an impostor. Despondent at Mark's constant requests to produce his real sister, Karin writes a letter to Gerald Weber, a cognitive neurologist whose case histories of bizarre brain disorders have best-selling appeal (think Oliver Sacks). Weber, who is suffering a very different kind of identity crisis himself, agrees to examine Mark. Powers has taken the primal question--Who am I? --and traced it to its chemical elements, exploring the ways the mind constructs smooth narratives out of messy reality. But his investigation is larger than the individual, leading him to explore how humans as a species smooth out the rough spots, tuning out the natural world, straying from the instincts that might keep us alive on our own long journey. Powers has complete command of storytelling skills, building questions of both plot and philosophy so deftly that, in their denouemont, there is no surprise, only recognition. A remarkable novel, from one of our greatest novelists, and a book that will change all who read it. --Keir Graff Copyright 2006 Booklist
Library Journal Review
When Karin's brother emerges from a coma after a serious car accident, he refuses to acknowledge Karin as his sister. Powerful stuff from an award-winning author. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
A truck jackknifes off an "arrow straight country road" near Kearney, Nebr., in Powers's ninth novel, becoming the catalyst for a painstakingly rendered minuet of self-reckoning. The accident puts the truck's 27-year-old driver, Mark Schluter, into a 14-day coma. When he emerges, he is stricken with Capgras syndrome: he's unable to match his visual and intellectual identifications with his emotional ones. He thinks his sister, Karin, isn't actually his sister-she's an imposter (the same goes for Mark's house). A shattered and worried Karin turns to Gerald Weber, an Oliver Sacks-like figure who writes bestsellers about neurological cases, but Gerald's inability to help Mark, and bad reviews of his latest book, cause him to wonder if he has become a "neurological opportunist." Then there are the mysteries of Mark's nurse's aide, Barbara Gillespie, who is secretive about her past and seems to be much more intelligent than she's willing to let on, and the meaning of a cryptic note left on Mark's nightstand the night he was hospitalized. MacArthur fellow Powers (Gold Bug Variations, etc.) masterfully charts the shifting dynamics of Karin's and Mark's relationship, and his prose-powerful, but not overbearing-brings a sorrowful energy to every page. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The theme of cognitive disorder, variously explored in Powers's forbiddingly brainy earlier fiction, is the central subject of his eerie, accomplished ninth novel. An image of sand-hill cranes migrating from Nebraska's Platte River sets the scene, where 20-something slaughterhouse-worker Mark Schluter crashes his truck in an adjacent field, sustaining severe bodily and neurological injuries. Repeating an all-too-familiar pattern, Mark's older sister Karin leaves her job and life in Sioux City to be with him--stirring up memories of their shared childhood in thrall to a violent, alcoholic father and religious zealot mother. But Mark (whose inchoate, terrified viewpoint is rendered in a rich mlange of semi-coherent thoughts and visions) no longer knows Karin; he is, in fact, convinced she's a stranger masquerading as his sister. Eventually, he's diagnosed as suffering from "Capgras syndrome . . . one of a family of misidentification delusions." But Mark's symptoms elude the pattern familiar to Gerald Weber, a prominent New York cognitive neurologist and bestselling author, summoned by Karin's importuning letter. Weber's "tests" fail to relieve or explain Mark's delusive paranoia, and Karin turns first to the siblings' former childhood friend Daniel Riegel, long since estranged from Mark, now a deeply committed environmental activist; then to her former lover Robert Karsh, a manipulative charmer who has risen to local prominence as a successful developer. Contrasts thus established seem pat, but Powers explores the mystery surrounding Mark through suspenseful sequences involving his raucous drinking buddies (who may know more about his accident than they're telling); compassionate caregiver Barbara Gillespie; and the unidentified observer who left a cryptic message about Mark's ordeal at the patient's hospital bedside. Issues of environmental stewardship and rapine, compulsions implicit in migratory patterns and Weber's changing concept of the fluid, susceptible nature of the self are sharply dramatized in a fascinating dance of ideas. One of our best novelists (The Time of Our Singing, 2003, etc.) once again extends his unparalleled range. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Late one night, near the Platte River in Kearney, Nebraska, where the sandhill cranes pause every year in their spectacular migration, Mark Schluter flips his truck. Brain damaged, he develops Capgras syndrome, which makes him think that his sister, Karin, is an impostor. Despondent at Mark's constant requests to produce his real sister, Karin writes a letter to Gerald Weber, a cognitive neurologist whose case histories of bizarre brain disorders have best-selling appeal (think Oliver Sacks). Weber, who is suffering a very different kind of identity crisis himself, agrees to examine Mark. Powers has taken the primal question--Who am I? --and traced it to its chemical elements, exploring the ways the mind constructs smooth narratives out of messy reality. But his investigation is larger than the individual, leading him to explore how humans as a species smooth out the rough spots, tuning out the natural world, straying from the instincts that might keep us alive on our own long journey. Powers has complete command of storytelling skills, building questions of both plot and philosophy so deftly that, in their denouemont, there is no surprise, only recognition. A remarkable novel, from one of our greatest novelists, and a book that will change all who read it. --Keir Graff Copyright 2006 Booklist
Library Journal Review
When Karin's brother emerges from a coma after a serious car accident, he refuses to acknowledge Karin as his sister. Powerful stuff from an award-winning author. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.