I overlooked this Richard Powers interview with the Sun-Times‘ Stephen J. Lyons, but it’s worth your time. Interestingly, like The Time of Our Singing, The Echo Maker was composed entirely through Powers lying in bed, speaking directly into the computer.

Those keen on Richard Powers will want to check here next week. That’s when we’ll be unleashing our Echo Maker roundtable, containing a good deal of in-depth discussion about the book.

Powell’s Jill Owens talks with Richard Powers.

Over at Bookforum, James Gibbons examines Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker and compares it against his previous works. Gibbons even manages to corral a few quotes from the man himself. (Thanks, Dan and DT!)

For those who enjoyed the roundtable discussions involving David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green and T.C. Boyle’s Talk Talk, I’m pleased to report that, at the beginning of October, we’ll be plunging forward with another one.

This may be our most comprehensive roundtable yet. Fourteen people will be participating, offering their thoughts on Richard Powers’ forthcoming book, The Echo Maker, and discussing the book in light of previous work. Some of the participants are well-schooled in Powers. Some of them are people you know.

But you’re definitely going to want to stick around for this, because a few unexpected guests may also be putting in an appearance. More details to come.

Let’s not forget that Richard Powers has a new novel, The Echo Maker, coming out in October. While half the size of Pynchon’s near 1,000 page opus, my guess is that it should appease Pynchonites just before December. Publishers Weekly offers the following review:

Starred Review. 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.