Bewilderment

8 hrs. 47 min.

Author Richard Powers

Narrator Ilya Dementyev

Description

First published in Russian. An international bestseller shortlisted for the Booker Prize and a Pulitzer Prize finalist!

Astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life in deep space and, after his wife’s death, raises his nine-year-old son Robin alone—a remarkably intelligent boy who writes poetry and can draw animals and plants in the minutest details for hours. And now they want to expel him from school for beating his own friend. With each passing month Robin’s condition worsens, and then his father resorts to the newest treatment method—neural feedback. Robin begins to control himself by interacting with a model based on a pre-recorded pattern of emotions from his late mother, who previously took part in the experiment.

Meanwhile, the world around the Byrnes—and across Earth—starts to fall apart.