Generosity: An Enhancement (Hardcover) ~ Richard Powers (Author) Cover Art

Generosity: An Enhancement (Hardcover)

By: Richard Powers (Author)

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Review

"Powers has secured a place as one of our most exciting contemporary novelists, contemporary not merely because he is alive and writing..., but also because he deals with truly modern themes, unafraid to place humanity under science's microscope. He has the guts to use the novel to explore the realities that undermine the very premise of the novel. All that, and it's a relaxing, enjoyable read."

"[T]he true subject of GENEROSITY....is the notion of interpretation, the idea that reality is in how we read it, in the shapes we build out of the formless information, the meanings we construct....[But I]n the end, there's something else at stake -- not just existence but what it means....[T]he flip side of [Powers's] intellect is that his characters are, in places, two-dimensional....Not unlike THE ECHO MAKER, though, GENEROSITY doesn't so much suffer from these limitations as it uses them to frame a rumination about identity and artifice, nature and nurture, the inexplicable forces that make us who we are."

"GENEROSITY is an excellent introduction to Powers's work, a lighter, leaner treatment of his favorite themes and techniques....[He] is...an engaging storyteller..., and even as he questions the conventions of narrative and character, GENEROSITY gains in momentum and suspense."

"Much of the tension behind Powers's idea-driven novels stems from the delicate balance between plot and concept, and he wisely adopts a voice that is--sometimes painfully--aware of the occasional strain....[He] strays from mere record to attempt an impossible task: to make the world right." (starred review)

"Powers considers...the evolutionary needs of the mind, our reasons for being and odds of survival, and the role of fiction in a nonfiction world....[I]t's another tremendous accomplishment from a writer who sees his species with brilliant uncomfortable clarity." (starred review)

Publisher's note

FROM THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF "THE ECHO MAKER," A PLAYFUL AND PROVOCATIVE NOVEL ABOUT THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAPPINESS GENE
When Chicagoan Russell Stone finds himself teaching a Creative Nonfiction class, he encounters a young Algerian woman with a disturbingly luminous presence. Thassadit Amzwar's blissful exuberance both entrances and puzzles the melancholic Russell. How can this refugee from perpetual terror be so happy? Won't someone so open and alive come to serious harm? Wondering how to protect her, Russell researches her war-torn country and skims through popular happiness manuals. Might her condition be hyperthymia? Hypomania? Russell's amateur inquiries lead him to college counselor Candace Weld, who also falls under Thassa's spell. Dubbed Miss Generosity by her classmates, Thassa's joyful personality comes to the attention of the notorious geneticist and advocate for genomic enhancement, Thomas Kurton, whose research leads him to announce the genotype for happiness.
Russell and Candace, now lovers, fail to protect Thassa from the growing media circus. Thassa's congenital optimism is soon severely tested. Devoured by the public as a living prophecy, her genetic secret will transform both Russell and Kurton, as well as the country at large.
What will happen to life when science identifies the genetic basis of happiness? Who will own the patent? Do we dare revise our own temperaments? Funny, fast, and finally magical, "Generosity "celebrates both science and the freed imagination. In his most exuberant book yet, Richard Powers asks us to consider the big questions facing humankind as we begin to rewrite our own existence.

Intrigued by an Algerian woman whose blissful demeanor contrasts with the horrific environment of her home country, Chicago teacher Russell Stone brings her to the attention of others who become equally entranced. By the National Book Award-winning author of The Echo Maker. 75,000 first printing.

Annotation

No one tackles issues of science and humanity with more verve and ingenuity than National Book Award-winner and MacArthur Fellow Richard Powers (THE ECHO MAKER, GALATEA 2.2). In GENEROSITY, a writer and his college counselor lover discover an Algerian woman named Thassa with a preternatural capacity for happiness despite a life filled with great personal hardship. When a famous genetic scientist claims to have isolated the gene for contentment out of Thassa's DNA, society begins to buzz with the possibilities. Could this be the solution to humanity's sins? Might Thassa usher in a new evolutionary dawn? Simultaneously a grand philosophical thought experiment and deeply human narrative, GENEROSITY, like so many of Powers's novels, challenges our understanding of who we are and where our future lies.

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