The Echo Maker

The Echo Maker

Summary

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory, an intense, thrilling novel about a near fatal accident and its devastating consequences.

On a winter night, Mark Schluter’s truck turns over in a near-fatal accident. His sister, Karin, returns reluctantly to their hometown to look after him. But when he finally awakes from his coma, Mark believes that Karin – who looks, acts, and sounds just like his sister – is really an identical impostor.

Shattered by her brother’s behaviour, Karin contacts neuroscientist Dr Gerald Weber. But what Weber discovers in Mark begins to undermine even his own sense of self. Meanwhile, Mark, armed only with a note left by an anonymous witness, attempts to learn what really happened. The truth of that evening will change the lives of all three beyond recognition.

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

‘A psychological thriller, a flawed love story, a study of authenticity in emotions, a commentary on America's relations with itself and the world, humanity and ecology... undoubtedly magnificent’ The Times

Reviews

  • Among his most stunning yet: profound and heartbreaking
    Financial Times

About the author

Richard Powers

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory and his most recent novel, Bewilderment, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more