The Echo Maker Book

I find the task of reviewing Richard Powers daunting and humbling. This is my third one, after Orfeo and The Time of Our Singing, and they are all brilliant in subtly different ways. One obvious difference is that there is much less music in this one, but there is a wealth of ideas - on the brain, on nature and evolution, on the nature of American society after 9/11, and on the nature of love and what it really means to know another person. Then there is the setting, the Platte river in South Nebraska, a spectacular staging post on the migration path of sandhill cranes.

The story starts with Mark, a young man in left in a coma after a car accident that almost killed him. His sister and only remaining relative Karin comes back to her hometown to care for him. This is just the start of a complex web in which nothing and nobody is quite what it or they seem to be. When Mark recovers consciousness, he is unable to accept that Karin is his sister, obsessing on minor differences between what he sees and what he remembers, illustrating what is known as Capgras syndrome. The case is brought to the attention of Gerald Weber, a writer about psychological disorders (who must be at least partially modelled on Oliver Sacks). Gerald becomes involved against his better judgment and the case causes him a crisis of confidence that leads him to question his professional integrity.

Interspersed with the story of Mark's disease, there are two other major strands to the story. Firstly Mark becomes obsessed with a mysterious note left at his bedside on the day of the accident, and needs to find out who wrote it, what they know, and how his friends were involved. Secondly Karin becomes involved with Mark's estranged childhood friend Daniel, who works on an environmental project protecting the cranes' habitat and fighting a development project that threatens it.

The material on the brain, how brain science evolves and what is known and not known about various brain disorders is fascinating, but perhaps overlong and a little too detailed for all but the keenest readers. The personal story is gripping, and some of the turns it takes are genuinely surprising.

I am still just scratching the surface of what could be said about this book, all I can really do is recommend it. Perhaps not quite as extraordinary as The Time of Our Singing, but it seems invidious to compare such different books, and my respect for Powers as a writer has only increased.