[b:Bewilderment|56404444|Bewilderment|Richard Powers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1632843882l/56404444.SY75.jpg|87106649] is [a:Richard Powers|11783|Richard Powers|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1263155076p2/11783.jpg]'s thirteenth novel and coming after his 2018 [b:The Overstory|40180098|The Overstory|Richard Powers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562786502l/40180098.SY75.jpg|57662223], which won a Pulitzer Prize, and is the only other of his novels I've read, I approached it with that uh-oh, he's-got-a-high-bar mentality. But they're completely different kinds of books, so I lost that view quickly.
 I loved everything about Bewilderment. The prose borders on poetry, and parts border on [a:Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|2778055|Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1433582280p2/2778055.jpg] territory, which is a compliment. (Remember that English teacher you had in ninth grade who pooh-poohed Vonnegut? That teacher was wrong.)
 Bewilderment is, technically, science fiction, which is a better way to say science fiction, but it's so grounded in things that are happening now that its view of life in the very near future (I'd guess around seven years) is accurate. Many books, TV shows and movies that try to do things like Powers does here come off as just silly. (Best example in a recent movie: Netflix's Don't Look Up.)
 Powers and I are like minded. In many ways, he's like a much smarter version of me who can write brilliantly and be disciplined enough to work at getting a believable lattice on which to hang his fiction.
 If what you know of this book is only from Tracy K. Smith's review of it in the New York Times October 3, 2021 review of it, you are ill informed. Smith somehow made race a large part of it, when it has zero to do with the novel. I assume the main two characters in it, a single father and his troubled nine-year-old son, are white, but only because of a few times when skin tone changes due to cold weather, though yes, I know the author is white and the novel is written in the first person.
 To me, Powers is in a prime of sorts. Now in his mid 60s, his writing skills and observational powers are sharp but added to it now is a great degree of wisdom.

 They share a lot, astronomy and childhood. Both are voyages across huge distances. Bothg search for facts beyond their grasp. Both theorize wildly and let possibilities multiply without limits. Both are humbled every few weeks. Both operate out of ignorance. Both are mystified by time. Both are forever starting out.