The Echo Makers by Richard Powers
Release date: 2006 / 451 pages
Synopsis (from back cover): On a winter night on a remote Nebraska road, twenty-seven-year-old Mark Schluter has a near-fatal car accident. His older sister, Karin, returns reluctantly to their hometown to nurse Mark back from a traumatic head injury. but when Mark emerges from a coma, he believes that this woman — who looks, acts, and sounds just like his sister — is really an imposter. When Karin contacts the famous cognitive neurologist Gerald Weber for help, he diagnoses Mark as having Capgras syndrome. The mysterious nature of the disease, combined with the strange circumstances surrounding Mark’s accident, threaten to change all of their lives beyond recognition.
First line: “Cranes keep landing as night falls.”
Review: 
I attempted to read this a few years ago and just couldn’t get into it, but when I was asked to create discussion questions recently and had to revisit The Echo Makers I could not imagine why I gave up on this!
Ironically, (since I had abandoned it at page 50 before) I loved the beginning and most of the middle, but then felt it weakened a bit by the end. Mostly, it was just so darn long… The more I read, the more convinced I become that a novel has to be at the level of Tolstoy to merit more than 300 pages – but I tend to be a slash-and-burn editor… at least of other people’s writing 
Powers is ambitious in this novel — he melds neuroscience, psychology, ecology, mystery, and compelling, fully realized characters. Surprisingly, he is able to sustain each element consistently until the last 50 pages or so. Without “spoiling” anything, a relationship at the end didn’t work for me and I wanted a bit more resolution regarding the unifying psychological focus.
However, considering what Powers accomplished, I was quite impressed and did enjoy the novel immensely. I would also recommend this to any book club that is willing and able to tackle a 400 plus literary novel about human consciousness and our responsibility to each other and our environment. Creating discussion questions was too easy — I struggled to cut down the set to a reasonable number — which usually indicates compelling themes.
Interested in winning a copy? Just leave me a comment and I’ll choose a winner by Saturday!
Sounds like an interesting read. I’d love to win a copy!
Sounds intriguing. I belong to two book discussion groups and I think it would be fitting for either. Always looking for something different.
You’ve peaked my interests for sure! If I don’t win I will have to pick up a copy, I think!
I think my book club would enjoy something like this because of the psychological issues in the book…lots to talk about!
This one sounds good, too. I like learning about the brain and different neuroses. Enter me. Thanks.
Now this sounds interest to read. I would love to read this. It would be a great read for the book group I belong to.
It sounds like a very interesting read and will surely learn a little something a liitle about the neuroscience field.
This sounds like a book I would like!
This sounds like a very interesting book and I would love to share it with the pageturners
I would very much like to share this with my pageturners.
This sounds like a very interesting book and I would love to share it with my pageturners
I am fascinated with traumatic brain injuries and how they affect the patient and the caregivers. I’ve been following the case of Gabrielle Giffords with much interest and hope for her complete recovery.
Please include me.
This sounds likes an interesting book. Please put me in the drawing.
My kind of book! Please include me in this giveaway:)
~Renee
I’ve never heard of capgras syndrone, but it sounds like an interesting book. Please enter me. Thanks!
I would love to win a copy!
hawkes at citlink dot net