#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.

Item Information Item Information

Format: TradePaperback
Author: Franzen, Jonathan
ISBN: 9781250823991
Condition: Used
Dimensions: 8.22 x 1.08
Number Of Pages: 608
Publication Year: 2021

Customer Reviews

Rating Snapshot

5 ★ 100%

4 ★ 0%

3 ★ 0%

2 ★ 0%

1 ★ 0%

1 Ratings

0 Recommendations

Review Images

The perfect marriage falls apart in a very public way.

Jack H. - 3 years 1 month ago

The Berglunds are the neighborhood role models: he, the respectable environmental attorney, she, the happy homemaker, soccer mom, PTA volunteer...responsible, involved in their community, perfect parents...the quintessential liberal, modern and enlightened couple. So what is everybody to make of it when their teenage son moves in with the reactionary rednecks next door, or he takes a job with a big industrial polluter, or her unconventional and exciting old college flame is still seen coming around. What happens when the perfect marriage falls apart before everyones very eyes? Some stories have no bad guys: just good people trying to cope with the emptiness and angst of their everyday existence. Sometimes they make bad decisions for good reasons. Sometimes they hurt each other without intending to. Sometimes things come apart for no reason at all, and all one can do is keep walking through the wreckage and make what seems to be the best choices in bad situations. And sometimes surviving all that creates emotional capital that can be drawn on when it counts the most. Funny, tragic, and profoundly moving, Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" takes us through the worlds we make for ourselves when we have the freedom to choose our life paths...and the repercussions that result from those choices: no good guys or bad guys, just people, all too human, trying to make their lives into what they were told they should be. It explores sacrificing what you have, for what you think you want, and the emotional wreckage that is sometimes left in the wake. It highlights the amazing resilience that people have in the face of personal disaster. And it shows what an amazing thing living a life together, with all its pain and hurt, can build between two people when the things that really matter are at stake.
HPB Staff Review

Past Searches

Freedom

Available Offers

Overview

Customer Reviews

Rating Snapshot

Review Images

The perfect marriage falls apart in a very public way.