Bewilderment by Richard Powers

First of all, thank you to Penguin Randomhouse Canada and to @netgalley for the advance copy of this new work by one of my favourite authors of all time! I was beyond excited to learn that Powers had a new work out in September and even more thrilled to get early access to review.

It took me a few weeks to open Bewilderment because Powers’ previous work, The Overstory, is one of my absolute favourite books and I was nervous that I wouldn’t like the new one! I often get like this with writers I absolutely adore, but let me tell you, with Bewilderment I needn’t have worried.

The story follows widower and astrobiologist Theo as he navigates his own grief and the difficulty of raising his neurodivergent son as a single parent. With insights into the past of Theo and Aly’s story, the novel takes place a few years after Aly’s death as her family grapples to understand the circumstances of her passing. Robin, their son, has challenges of his own, as his doctors are unsure of the correct diagnosis for his neurodivergence and are adamant that drugs are the answer, but Theo wonders, can science offer another way?

Complex and brilliant, yet immediately readable, when I started the book I relaxed into the hands of a master of his craft. Powers tackles science-heavy subjects in this work ranging from astrobiology to psychology and neuroscience and ecology and all the surprising interconnections between them. The book is also a reimagining of Daniel Keyes’ story Flowers for Algernon. If this sounds intimidating - it isn’t. Powers distils the most bewildering of topics to moments of absolutely crystal clarity.

Like with The Overstory, reading Bewilderment gave me my favourite experience of fiction, which is inhabiting another life I will never lead with a completeness and emotional connection that made the story feel absolutely real. I also learned more about the wonders of the universe thanks to a writer of such skill that he turned bewilderment into understanding and pure wonder.