Awards
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2010 Powell's Staff Top 5s
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Staff Pick
Franzen is the current master of creating deep, real, and empathetic characters, and Freedom is no exception. This book was huge when it was released (thank you, Oprah), but if you missed it back in 2010 and want to know what all the praise and controversy is about that surrounds Franzen, this is the title to pick up. The musician Richard Katz, his level-headed best friend Walter Berglund, and his wife Patty are examined with the depth few authors can pull off while still entertaining the reader. There's so much to love and hate about these characters and more in this American literary classic. I recently read it for the second time and it was better upon further examination. Pick up a copy of Freedom and see why everyone has something to say about Jonathan Franzen. Recommended By Jeffrey J., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From the National Book Award-winning author of
The Corrections, a darkly comedic novel about family.
Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul — the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter — environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man — she was doing her small part to build a better world.
But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz — outre rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival — still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become a very different kind of neighbor, an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?
In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's intensely realized characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.
Review
"Passionately imagined, psychologically exacting, and shrewdly satirical, Franzen's spiraling epic exposes the toxic ironies embedded in American middle-class life and reveals just how destructive our muddled notions of entitlement and freedom are and how obliviously we squander life and love." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"Jonathan Franzen's galvanic new novel...showcases his impressive literary toolkit — every essential storytelling skill, plus plenty of bells and whistles — and his ability to throw open a big, Updikean picture window on American middle-class life....Mr. Franzen has written his most deeply felt novel yet — a novel that turns out to be both a compelling biography of a dysfunctional family and an indelible portrait of our times." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Review
"Freedom... [is] making a claim for shelf space among the kind of books that the big dogs used to write. The kind they called important. The kind they called greats." Esquire
Review
"As in his National Book Award winner, The Corrections, Franzen reveals a penchant for smart, deceptively simple, and culturally astute writing. Highly recommended." Library Journal
Synopsis
#1 National Bestseller
Winner of the John Gardner Fiction Award
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Walter and Patty Berglund as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.
Synopsis
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - Winner of the John Gardner Fiction Award - A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist - A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
Freedom, by the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Franzen, is a masterly novel of contemporary love and marriage, a brilliant charting of the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, and the heavy weight of empire.
Patty and Walter Berglund were the pioneers of old St. Paul--the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant garde of the Whole Foods generation. But now, in the new millennium, they have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter, once an environmental lawyer, taken a job working with Big Coal? Most startling of all, why has Patty, the perfect neighbor, turned into the local Fury?
Patty and Walter Berglund are indelible characters, and their mistakes and joys, as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, have become touchstones of contemporary American reality.
Synopsis
From the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections comes a darkly comedic novel about family. Franzen's intensely realized characters struggle to learn how to live in an ever-confusing world — one with the temptations and burdens of liberty, the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, and the heavy weight of empire.
About the Author
Jonathan Franzen is the author of The Corrections, winner of the 2001 National Book Award for fiction; the novels The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion; and two collections of essays, How to Be Alone and The Discomfort Zone, all published by FSG. He lives in New York City.