Esquire - Elizabeth Sile
"Powers proves, once again, that he’s a master of the novel with Orfeo, an engrossing and expansive read that is just as much a profile of a creative, obsessive man as it is an escape narrative."
Nathaniel Rich
"Part of the fun of reading [Powers] is to see how he wriggles out of his own snares. But a greater thrill is to join with him in untangling the most urgent and confounding puzzles of our age."
Jim Holt
"Powers is prodigiously talented…He writes lyrical prose, has a seductive sense of wonder and is an acute observer of social life…I [was] unable to resist the emotional pull of Orfeo."
Minneapolis Star Tribune - Harvey Freedenberg
"Orfeo is that rare novel truly deserving of the label 'lyrical'…Powers offers a profound story whose delights are many and lasting."
Los Angeles Times - David Ulin
"Magnificent and moving."
Chicago Tribune - Troy Jollimore
"Orfeo benefits from the deep sympathy Powers seems to feel for the brilliant and troubled protagonist he has created…[It] establishes beyond any doubt that the novel is very much alive."
Christian Science Monitor - Tom LeClair
"Of novelists in Powers's generation with whom he is often compared—Franzen, Vollmann, Wallace—none equals Powers's combination of consistent production, intellectual range, formal ingenuity, and emotional effect."
Entertainment Weekly
"Powers’ writing is complex and heady without being headachy, and his synesthetic descriptions of finding melodies in the mundane are full of their own kind of music."
Boston Globe - Adam Kirsch
"Biology and music, past and present, come together in a clever, explosive resolution."
Newsday - Dan Cryer
"Extraordinary…his evocations of music, let alone lost love, simply soar off the page…Once again, Richard Powers proves himself to be one of our finest novelists."
Slate - Scott Korb
"Orfeo is a first-class American road novel."
San Francisco Chronicle - Ted Gioia
"For sheer bravado in constructing sentences, few authors of contemporary fiction can surpass Powers…One of his finest yet."
Salon - Laura Miller
"One long express-train ride to the gorgeous. And the scenery is as sublime as ever."
