{pages} girls’ picks
An Oprah’s choice, a club favorite, and a local’s thriller This week we are raving about Jonathan Franzen’s new novel Freedom. People are talking about this book for good reason. It’s a big, dense, rich story of a dysfunctional American family that is slowly unraveling. Patty Berglund, once a superstar basketball player, is married to nerdy Walter, an environmental lawyer who, unlike the rest of his family, works hard and is a successful, solid, salt of the earth father and husband. That is about as normal as the story gets. Walter and Patty’s seemingly perfect life collapses and Franzen’s cynical take on the every day is humorous, yet sad. His descriptions are true to our time, but he pokes fun at it all. Imagine Walter, first lieutenant of a wealthy bird loving philanthropist’s foundation, trying to save the warbler’s habitat in West Virginia, only to allow thousands of acres of forested mountaintop to be obliterated by coal mining. It will become a conservation area, but not for another 100 years. Or take Walter’s best friend Richard Katz – a rock star, sex addict who suddenly becomes iconic through songs he writes about his experiences with Patty at the lake house. Meanwhile…
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