“Almost nobody knows this, but plants do pretty much all the work. Everybody else is just a parasite,” says Robin, a nine-year old boy, in Bewilderment by Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers. The protagonist is an astrobiologist dad who lost his wife to a car accident and single-parents Robin, his son who is sensitive, brilliant, and has difficulty adjusting to the feckless humans that populate earth. Robin and his father share an inner world that revolves around Robin’s deceased mother and seeing vividly in an ecological and spiritual way. Themes in the story are the love the characters have for each other, climate change, life on other planets, and the madness of our post-truth society. The story is difficult to describe in terms of plot, but it’s absolutely beautiful in execution. Robin is an unforgettable character with the voice of a true heart. Here’s what Kirkus Reviews says:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/richard-powers/bewilderment-powers/
