Freedom: A Novel

Jonathan Franzen

Aug 2010 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About this ebook

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—outré 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 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.

Ratings and reviews

I could not put this book down for three straight days. The Berglunds, their neighbors, friends, and enemies are, with very few exceptions, extremely well developed characters. This reader felt very lucky to observe a small group Americans living through the end of the last century struggle mightily to carve out spaces for themselves as individuals. Reflecting on this story, about a month after having read it, I cannot help but feel that a literary character is hardly ever developed better than Patty Berglund is in this vibrant world Franzen creates. Having read this book after several of my friends, I am grateful to them for having brought it to me, and me to it. Please enjoy it as thoroughly as I did.

Franzen's acerbic diatribe on post-9/11 suburban life reiterates the misanthropic themes within his earlier work, "The Corrections". In "Freedom", this brilliant linguistic stylist renders another microscopic, therapeutic narrative of domestic bickering within a dysfunctional family. In writing "How to be Alone" & "The Discomfort Zone", Franzen expressed his residual anger more effectively. Franzen's popularity may derive from his ability to express the repressed frustrations shared among many readers. J.P. Miller. Cambridge, MA

Incredible modern literature. I never wanted this book to end. There were some parts that were slow and not interesting to me, but once I got through those parts it paid off. The way Franzen setup the storyline is genius. While reading this book a movie was created in my head, this could be non-fiction in a James Frey type of way. This is about human trials and tribulations. It is full of selfish, demanding characters that are all from the same roots. It shows that humans absolutely need to feel wanted. It shows that humans have to have something to want. I will never read another book of this length in the short amount of time that I did. Now that it is over, I am wondering if I will ever find another piece of contemperary work that compares to this greatness. Walter is saving the little birds!

About the author

Jonathan Franzen is the author of novels such as The Corrections (2001), Freedom (2010), and Crossroads (2021), and works of nonfiction, including Farther Away (2012) and The End of the End of the Earth (2018), all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He lives in Santa Cruz, California.