Recommendations from our site
“This novel is about a world-renowned scientist who has lost his wife and is struggling to understand his son, who is undergoing complex neurological issues. The father is working in space. He spends every day looking at the stars. He and his son are processing their grief together, and he’s bonding with his son by teaching him about stars. The father is a genius whose work means everything to him. He starts to think about ways he can apply his training to mending his son’s brain and trying to help his son to find joy in life again. The novel explores the concept that it’s fine to give things up if they’re no longer necessary to live a happy and wholesome life. At one point, the scientist unveils an eco-protest poster in DC, risking his career, because his son has become passionate about biodiversity.” Read more...
“Powers is a writer for whom the ideas very close to the surface—he makes them part of the plot. In this book he’s engaging with ideas about neuroscience and the brain, like: where does emotion reside? Where does reason reside? How do these relate to each other? And how does this fit into our ideas about what counts as ‘normal behaviour’. And he’s exploring all of that, in a landscape, a created world that is itself clearly shaped by the present realities of climate change. What is considered normal human behaviour is then understood against a global set of circumstances in which what is considered normal is being disrupted by the “abnormal” conditions of climate change. It’s a tension that I think he uses very fruitfully in the novel.” Read more...
The Best Fiction of 2021: The Booker Prize Shortlist
Maya Jasanoff, Historian
