I think Richard Powers is a sex weirdo who comes up with elaborate novel structures to contain his tulpa gf's in. I was really put off by the woman in the last short story who goes from bimbo to sexy ghost. That felt prototypical for how he sees women. He also admits to stalking and creeping on one of his grad students in his autofiction Galatea 2.2. The short stories were beautiful but the novel itself felt poorly executed with a lot of cut plot threads.