Orfeo (2014) by Richard Powers is a daring modern riff on the Orpheus myth, blending music, bioengineering, and post-9/11 paranoia into a fugue-like literary thriller. The novel follows Peter Els, a retired avant-garde composer who, in a fit of inspiration, modifies bacteria to encode musical patterns in DNA—only to be branded a bioterrorist after a lab mishap draws Homeland Security’s attention. As Els flees across America, his past unravels through flashbacks: his failed marriage, his estranged daughter, and his lifelong obsession with music’s power to defy mortality.
Powers, a MacArthur genius and Pulitzer Prize winner, infuses the chase with staggering erudition, from Messiaen’s wartime quartets to algorithmic composition, while probing art’s collision with surveillance states. The climax—a Beethoven-quoting standoff—asks whether creativity can redeem a fractured world.
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and a tour de force for music nerds.
