Orfeo

by Richard Powers

Overview

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory, an emotionally charged novel inspired by the myth of Orpheus.

"Bravo, Richard Powers, for hitting so many high notes with Orfeo and contributing to the fraction of books that really matter." —Heller McAlpin, NPR

In Orfeo, composer Peter Els opens the door one evening to find the police on his doorstep. His home microbiology lab—the latest experiment in his lifelong attempt to find music in surprising patterns—has aroused the suspicions of Homeland Security. Panicked by the raid, Els turns fugitive and hatches a plan to transform this disastrous collision with the security state into an unforgettable work of art that will reawaken its audience to the sounds all around it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393242683
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/13/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	835,103
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Richard Powers is the author of fourteen novels, including The Overstory, Bewilderment, and Orfeo. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Hometown:

Urbana, Illinois

Date of Birth:

June 18, 1957

Place of Birth:

Evanston, Illinois

Education:

M.A., University of Illinois, 1979

Editorial Reviews

11/15/2013
Peter Els is an eccentric, musically gifted genius who inadvertently becomes the target of government security forces and is forced to hit the road and hide. The novel maintains two tracks. The first traces Peter's past, from his early discovery of his innate intellectual gifts through his educational career and life as a composer of unique and largely unappreciated music. In his past life, Peter married a fellow artist, and they moved to the Boston area, had a daughter, and were happy, but the pressures of family life clashed with his inner artist, and the marriage broke up. The second track finds the 70-year-old Peter in the present, living a reclusive life in a small Pennsylvania college town, when a misunderstanding leads the police to his door. Peter has been experimenting with DNA alteration and disease-spreading bacteria in relation to music, which is what has the feds on full alert. VERDICT This latest from National Book Award winner Powers (The Echo Maker) is concerned with advanced scientific technologies and musical theory that allow the author to riff on arcane vocabularies, but the stories of the Elses and their friends provide another, more human dimension to this very well-written and philosophical work. [See Prepub Alert, 7/8/13.]—James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.

Library Journal

"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."

Esquire - Elizabeth Sile

"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."

Nathaniel Rich

"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."

Jim Holt

"Orfeo is that rare novel truly deserving of the label 'lyrical'…Powers offers a profound story whose delights are many and lasting."

Minneapolis Star Tribune - Harvey Freedenberg

"Magnificent and moving."

Los Angeles Times - David Ulin

"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."

Chicago Tribune - Troy Jollimore

"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."

Christian Science Monitor - Tom LeClair

"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."

Entertainment Weekly

"Biology and music, past and present, come together in a clever, explosive resolution."

Boston Globe - Adam Kirsch

"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."

Newsday - Dan Cryer

"Orfeo is a first-class American road novel."

Slate - Scott Korb

"For sheer bravado in constructing sentences, few authors of contemporary fiction can surpass Powers…One of his finest yet."

San Francisco Chronicle - Ted Gioia

"One long express-train ride to the gorgeous. And the scenery is as sublime as ever."

Salon - Laura Miller