Synopses & Reviews
From the National Book Award-winning author of
The Corrections, a collection of essays that reveal him to be one of our sharpest, toughest, and most entertaining social critics.
While the essays in this collection range in subject matter from the sex-advice industry to the way a supermax prison works, each one wrestles with the essential themes of Franzen's writing: the erosion of civil life and private dignity; and the hidden persistence of loneliness in postmodern, imperial America. Reprinted here for the first time is Franzen's controversial l996 investigation of the fate of the American novel in what became known as "the Harper's essay," as well as his award-winning narrative of his father's struggle with Alzheimer's disease, and a rueful account of his brief tenure as an Oprah Winfrey author.
Review
"These canny, well-researched essays...range over a variety of subjects...but they are united by a single passionate insistence that, in a cookie-cutter world, people who want simply to be themselves should have the right to do so." Publishers Weekly
Review
"The other essays, most previously published in Details, the New Yorker, and elsewhere, deliver sufficient bang for the book, though none quite stands up to the centerpiece [Harper's essay]....Smart, solid, and well-paced: a pleasure for Franzen's many remaining admirers." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"The author makes himself a colorful presence throughout these essays....This collection emphasizes his elegance, acumen and daring as an essayist....He's funny, too....How to Be Alone is a captivating but uneven collection. Some of its entries have clearly aged better than others....The more recent entries, less showy about their brilliance, tend to flow more smoothly." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review
"I reached the limits of my tolerance for most essays about "the writer's life" long ago, but I've always got time for good writing about reading. The miscellaneous pieces in this collection are not exclusively on that subject there are reported pieces on the Chicago post office, prisons and Franzen's father's death from Alzheimer's disease, as well but the author of The Corrections has a respect for readers and a concern for the practice of reading that's surprisingly and lamentably rare among his colleagues....If the collection has any one theme, it's a very welcome one, on the value of privacy, of stretching out in the space inside one's own head and of not allowing your preoccupations to be dictated by the media's jangly siren song." Laura Miller, Salon.com
Synopsis
From the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections, a collection of essays that reveal him to be one of the sharpest, toughest, and most entertaining social critics.
About the Author
Jonathan Franzen won the National Book Award for fiction for The Corrections in 2001, and is the author of two other critically acclaimed novels, The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and Harper's.
Table of Contents
"A Word About This Book"
"My Father's Brain"
"Imperial Bedroom"
"Why Bother"
"Lost in the Mail"
"Erika Imports"
"Sifting the Ashes"
"A Reader in Exile"
"First City"
"Scavenging"
"Control Units"
"Mr. Difficult"
"Books in Bed"
"Meet Me in St. Louis"
"Inauguration Day, January 2001"