Orfeo

by Richard Powers

Overview

New York Times Bestseller
"Bravo, Richard Powers, for hitting so many high notes with Orfeo and contributing to the fraction of books that really matter." —Heller McAlpin, NPRIn 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:	9780393349849
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/02/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	237,549
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Richard Powers is the author of twelve novels, most recently The Overstory. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Award, and he has been a Pulitzer Prize and four-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. 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

"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 - New York Review of Books

"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."

Elizabeth Sile - Esquire

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

Scott Korb - Slate

"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 - New York Times Book Review

"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."

Dan Cryer - Newsday

"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."

Adam Kirsch - Boston Globe

[T]he crowning achievement of this wildly imaginative Evanston native’s distinguished career.

Chicago Tribune

An extraordinary feat… makes the inaccessible comprehensible.

Andrew Leonard - Salon

Powers’ writing is complex and heady without being head-achy, and his synesthetic descriptions of finding melodies in the mundane are full of their own kind of music.

Keith Staskiewicz - Entertainment Weekly

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

Ted Gioia - The San Francisco Chronicle

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 - The New York Review of Books

Magnificent and moving.

David Ulin - The Los Angeles Times

Bravo, Richard Powers, for hitting so many high notes with Orfeo and contributing to the fraction of books that really matter.”

Heller McAlpin - NPR

Powers is prodigiously talented, he writes lyrical prose, has a seductive sense of wonder and is an acute observer of social life.

Jim Holt - The New York Times Book Review

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.

Tom LeClair - Christian Science Monitor

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.”

Troy Jollimore - Chicago Tribune

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

Harvey Freedenberg - Minneapolis Star Tribune

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

Ted Gioia - San Francisco Chronicle

Magnificent and moving.

David Ulin - Los Angeles Times

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

Laura Miller - Salon

While it starts off with a thriller plotline—falsely accused bioterrorist on the run—Richard Powers's Orfeo constantly shifts gears.”

Ron Hogan - The Daily Beast

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.

Tom LeClair - The Christian Science Monitor

Powers deftly dramatizes the obsession that has defined Els’s life: ‘How did music trick the body into thinking it had a soul?'

The New Yorker

Will transport readers.

The Economist

Of novelists in Powers's generation with whom he is often compared … none equals Powers's combination of consistent production, intellectual range, formal ingenuity, and emotional effect.

Tom LeClair - Barnes and Noble Review

Few authors of contemporary fiction can surpass Powers.

Ted Gioia - San Francisco Gate

Will take your breath away.

John Domini - Philly.com

Ambitious and profound.

Angela Carone - San Diego Magazine

"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 - New York Times Book Review

A fascinating novel about the allure and power of music.

Washington Post