Identity, consciousness and memory are the subjects of the compelling new work by esteemed novelist Richard Powers. In The Echo Maker, he has produced an intricately crafted tale that poses challenging questions about the extent to which we can ever fully grasp the reality of our own existence and that of the people who surround us.

When Mark Schluter flips his pickup truck on an isolated stretch of Nebraska highway, his sister Karin abandons her life and rushes to his bedside. The circumstances of the accident are puzzling, made even more so when she discovers a cryptic note about it in her brother's hospital room. But Karin is in for the most profound shock when Mark awakens from his coma firmly convinced an imposter has taken her place. He's diagnosed with Capgras syndrome, a form of misidentification delusion only rarely induced by head trauma. Karin's search for a cure leads her to Gerald Weber, a cognitive neurologist who's well known for popularizing his field in best-selling books containing accounts of bizarre neurological disorders. Unfortunately for Weber, the critics have savaged his latest work, making the doctor himself feel like an imposter, and as he gropes toward a solution for Mark's worsening delusions, he must wrestle with his own psychological demons.

Into this complex tale, Powers skillfully layers another plotline describing the fight to protect the migratory habitat of the sandhill cranes that stop on the Platte River on their way north each spring. In the battle waged by environmental activists and commercial developers over water rights, Karin finds herself caught between two men, adversaries in that confrontation, struggling to discern where her true loyalties lie.

Whether he's plumbing the depths of his characters' interior lives or describing the harsh Nebraska landscape, Powers' writing is rich and evocative, and thoughtful readers will find themselves pausing to savor many well-crafted sentences. In The Echo Maker he's applied his considerable gifts to chart a fascinating journey through the terrain of the human mind.

Harvey Freedenberg writes from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Copyright 2006 BookPage Reviews.

Winner of the 2006 National Book Award, this poignant novel offers further proof of Powers' remarkable abilities as a fiction writer. The Echo Maker tells the story of Mark Schluter, a 27-year-old meatpacker who lives in Nebraska and nearly dies in a car accident. Mark sinks into a coma after the crash, and his sister, Karin, becomes his caretaker. When Mark comes out of the coma, he refuses to believe that Karin is really his sister—he thinks she's an impostor. Desperate to help her brother, Karin gets in touch with noted neurologist Gerald Weber, who confirms that Mark has a disease called Capgras syndrome. Those who suffer from this strange (and real) condition are unable to believe that the people closest to them are who they really say they are. Weber and his wife, Sylvie, are two members of a large and well-rounded cast of characters that includes Karin's eco-conscious boyfriend, two of Mark's pals from the meatpacking plant and a mysterious nurse named Barbara. Powers builds a rich, complex narrative, with mysteries stemming not only from Mark's strange disease, but from the accident itself and the events that led up to that night. He skillfully handles these multiple plot strands, building a wonderful work of literary fiction that succeeds on every level.

A reading group guide is available online at www.picadorusa.com. Copyright 2007 BookPage Reviews.

Powers (The Time of Our Singing ), who has won a Lannan Literary Award and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction, here investigates the mystery of traumatic brain injury. Set in small-town Nebraska near the bird-watching spectacle of Platte River, Powers's ninth novel centers on the life of 27-year-old Mark Schluter, who is unable to recognize his sister, Karin, after suffering a near-fatal accident. Desperate for clarity, Karin turns to world-renowned cognitive neurologist and writer Gerald Weber (reminiscent of the real-life Oliver Sacks). Cleverly, this novel isn't simply about Mark's damaged brain (he appears to suffer from a rare case of Capgras syndrome); instead, it sheds light generally on the human mind and our struggle to make sense of both the past and the present. Echo Maker is both mystery and case history as Mark struggles to investigate his accident through an anonymous note and Weber attempts to sort through the nuance and plasticity of the mind in his own declining years. Powers bounces back and forth through Mark's rambling thoughts, Weber's neurological theories, Karin's insecurities, and wonderfully poetic details of the cranes on the Platte River. Recommended for large public libraries.—Stephen Morrow, Columbus, OH

A truck jackknifes off an "arrow straight country road" near Kearney, Nebr., in Powers's ninth novel, becoming the catalyst for a painstakingly rendered minuet of self-reckoning. The accident puts the truck's 27-year-old driver, Mark Schluter, into a 14-day coma. When he emerges, he is stricken with Capgras syndrome: he's unable to match his visual and intellectual identifications with his emotional ones. He thinks his sister, Karin, isn't actually his sister--she's an imposter (the same goes for Mark's house). A shattered and worried Karin turns to Gerald Weber, an Oliver Sacks-like figure who writes bestsellers about neurological cases, but Gerald's inability to help Mark, and bad reviews of his latest book, cause him to wonder if he has become a "neurological opportunist." Then there are the mysteries of Mark's nurse's aide, Barbara Gillespie, who is secretive about her past and seems to be much more intelligent than she's willing to let on, and the meaning of a cryptic note left on Mark's nightstand the night he was hospitalized. MacArthur fellow Powers (Gold Bug Variations, etc.) masterfully charts the shifting dynamics of Karin's and Mark's relationship, and his prose--powerful, but not overbearing--brings a sorrowful energy to every page. (Oct.)