If you can read this, thank a teacher.

This is the first novel I read on the Amazon Kindle. I must say I had a hard time finishing the book. I made it to my book club without knowing that half of the ladies did not finish reading it too. Maybe because it dragged on for a long time, to be able to portray the loss of confidence and a sense of who we are and our purpose in life. Power’s style must have been the perfect way to reflect the ongoing confusion of his characters. Maybe it was also because I was reading it on new technology, the e-reader, thus I could not get passed the first few chapters.The main characters in the novel were Mark Schluter, Karin, his sister, Dr. Gerald Weber and Sylvie, Dr. Hayes and Barbara. There is Daniel and Robert Karsh, Karin’s lovers. Mark was in a near fatal accident and suffered brain trauma that renders him incapacitated and needing help. The only one who could provide care for him is his sister Karin. She uproots herself from her job and her home and tries to take care of her brother. A neurological disorder, Capgras, ensues after the traumatic brain injury. Mark doesn’t recognize Karin and thinks she is an impostor. Karin seeks the help of a well known physician and the doctor flies in town to examine Mark. He is apparently the authority on brain disorders, with a collection of journal entries chronicling the vast cases of neurological disorders he has seen and has treated and diagnosed. He is published and respected in his field. When Mark’s condition deteriorates, all that Dr. Weber is able to prescribe is CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy).Karin struggles with her own life with caring for Mark and reconnects with her hometown, Kearney, Nebraska. She goes out with Daniel, a friend of Mark’s. Daniel, the conservationist-environmentalist and pure hearted soul is somewhat too wimpy.  Karin sleeps with him and another man, Robert Karsh, an evil, selfish, polygamist land developer.In the wetlands of Platte, the cranes migrate and mate, they descend upon the marshes and is the backdrop of the drama that unfolds between Karin, Mark, their doctors and nurse, their friends and the confusion that they are experiencing owing to Mark’s illness and strange recovery.Everybody seems to be going through some kind of Capgras syndrome where the characters start to question their realities and their identities. Only the coming and the going of the cranes, their births and deaths seem to be permanent. The DNA that propels them to do the same rituals every season for all time ensures this. Powers likes to create characters from other classics, and I find this out from a blog review. He has apparently been basing his characters on those in The Wizard of Oz . Karen is Dorothy who wants to go home, Mark is the Scarecrow who doesn’t have a brain, Robert is the Tin man who doesn’t have a heart, Daniel is the lion without bravery. Dr. Weber is the Wizard of Oz, all knowing but is the fraud that misleads his patients. Barbara is Glinda the Goodwitch.The Wizard of Oz, the first American fairytale is the pattern that can be superimposed with the development of Power’s characters. Set in the backdrop of Nebraska, it is the perfect allusion to post 9/11 America where all of us are reeling from Capgras.