Freedom Reread

L. Gibson's Freedom Reread explores the difficulty of coming to terms with Jonathan Franzen's polarizing persona and his tragicomic novels of Midwestern family life. It places Freedom in conversation with a playful, idiosyncratic array of interlocutors, offering a fresh appreciation of his work and a searching critical analysis of his pronouncements on the novel's fate.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 144 pages
Publication date: 28 February 2023
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Jonathan Franzen is a writer who has a way of getting under people's skin. Despite his widespread acclaim, impressive sales, and prestigious literary awards, Franzen's polarizing persona often steals the spotlight from his tragicomic novels that explore Midwestern family life. In this intriguing reevaluation of his novel "Freedom" (2010), L. Gibson delves into the complexities of confronting Jonathan Franzen. "Freedom Reread" explores the author's distinctive narrative style in the context of the contradictions that have made him renowned: a widely read curmudgeon who is active on social media, a self-proclaimed fiction partisan who occasionally declares the novel's demise. The book is structured around autofictional forays into the process of grappling with Franzen and resisting definitive stances on his work. It places "Freedom" in conversation with a diverse range of interlocutors, including George Eliot's "Middlemarch" and Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks' classic film "You've Got Mail." Gibson's approach to Franzen is ambivalent, offering both a fresh appreciation of his work and a critical analysis of his statements about the novel's fate. "Freedom Reread" is a broad and stylistically ambitious exploration of Franzen's novelistic technique and public persona. It delivers a confident and artful inquiry into the author's craft and the enigmatic persona that has captivated readers and critics alike.

Weight: 284g
Dimension: 146 x 225 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231188937