You are hereJonathan Franzen discusses Freedom: A Novel

Jonathan Franzen discusses Freedom: A Novel

Start: 09/22/2010 7:00 pm

End: 09/22/2010 9:00 pm

Author: Jonathan Franzen, discusses his highly anticipated new novel Freedom.

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.

Book: 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 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.

What: Jonathan Franzen will discuss his life and work, answer audience questions, and signs copies of his work purchased from Rainy Day Books.

When: Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 7:00 PM

Where: A Rainy Day Books Author Event at Unity Temple on The Plaza, Sanctuary, 707 W 47th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64112

Admission Package: $28.00 plus Tax, includes from Rainy Day Books, One (1) Stamped Ticket, One (1) Guest Ticket (if needed) and One (1) Copy of Freedom (Hardcover) to be autographed after the presentation. All Author Event Book Sales are Final and Non-Returnable.

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