Description

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
‘A masterpiece’ New York Times
‘Stupendous, magnificent, unforgettable, witty and rich. A great American novel’ Spectator

From the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections comes a darkly comedic novel about family, now hailed as an American classic.

They had been the perfect family: liberal gentrifiers, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. But the Berglunds are struggling to live in an ever more confusing world. Walter, an environmental lawyer and commuter cyclist, has taken a job with Big Coal. Patty, the ideal hands-on mother and wife, is growing unhinged in front of the neighbours’ attentive eyes. Their son has moved in with the Republican family next door, and Richard Katz, outre rocker and Walter’s best friend and rival, has re-entered their lives.

‘Writing in prose that dazzles, Franzen has now written the two novels that best define modern America’ Independent

‘A masterpiece. Franzen skewers the particularity of modern life and love like no one else’ Daily Telegraph

Publisher Review

'Extraordinary... it is first troubling, then addictive - and then, with mounting satisfaction, convinces you this is simply on a different plane from other contemporary fiction' Guardian 'Deeper, funnier, sadder and truer than a work of fiction has any right to be' Independent on Sunday 'Moving, funny and unexpectedly beautiful. I missed it when it was over' Sam Mendes, Observer 'Franzen pulls off the extraordinary feat of making the lives of his characters more real to you than your own' David Hare, Guardian 'By the end of Freedom you may feel you understand its protagonists better than you know anyone in the world around you' Nicholas Hytner, Evening Standard, Books of the Year 'The novel of the year. Its portrait of a marriage, luminously and wittily drawn against a backdrop of modern America, is as good as literature gets' Sarah Sands, New Statesman