Purity - Softcover

Franzen, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385681534 ISBN 13: 9780385681537

Publisher: Anchor Canada, 2016

Synopsis

A magnum opus for our morally complex times from the author ofFreedom.
Purity Tyler, known to all as Pip, is an outspoken, forthright young woman struggling to make a life for herself. She sleeps in an rickety commune in Oakland. She's in love with an unavailable older man and is saddled with staggering college debt. She has a crazy mother and doesn't know who her father is. A chance encounter leads her to an internship in South America with the world-famous Sunlight Project, the president of which is Andreas Wolf, a charismatic genius who grew up privileged but disaffected in the German Democratic Republic. Like numerous women before her, she becomes obsessed with Andreas, and they have an intense, unsettling relationship. Eventually, he finds her work back in the United States.
     What lies underneath is a wild tale of hidden identities, secret wealth, neurotic fidelity, sociopathy, and murder. The truth of Pip's parentage lies at the centre of this maelstrom, but before it is resolved Franzen takes us from the rain-drenched forests of northern California, to paranoid East Berlin before the fall of the Wall, to the paradisiacal mountain valleys of Bolivia, exposing us to the vagaries of radical politics, the problematic seductions of the internet, and the no-holds-barred war between the sexes. Featuring an unforgettable cast of inimitable Franzenian characters, Purity is deeply troubling, richly moving, and hilarious.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of September 2015: Purity takes many forms in Franzen’s new novel—to begin with, it is the name of the book’s title character. “Pip,” as she is more commonly known, is not fond of her given name, and when we first meet her she is living in a crowded Oakland house under the burden of colossal college debt. Pip soon becomes involved in “The Sunlight Project,” a WikiLeaks-style group that seeks to uncover secrets and expose them on the web. Run by Andreas Wolf, a charismatic man of renown, who grew up in socialist East Germany, the Sunlight Project becomes the jumping-off point of discovery for Pip, as well as a starting line for Franzen to jump back in time and explore the backgrounds of his primary and secondary characters. There is a point in the book where readers may wonder where this is all headed; but the thoughtfulness and polish of Franzen’s prose should reassure that the journey isn’t in vain. It eventually becomes clear that nearly every character is chasing purity in some form—whether pursuing Pip herself or some platonic ideal—and Franzen ties up the ends in a way that is clean and satisfying but will have you thinking about Purity long after you have finished the book. --Chris Schluep

About the Author

JONATHAN FRANZEN is the author of four novels (Freedom, The Corrections, Strong Motion, and The Twenty-Seventh City), two collections of essays (Farther Away, How to Be Alone), a personal history (The Discomfort Zone), and translations of Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening and Karl Kraus. He lives in New York City and Santa Cruz, California.

Edition details

• Publisher: Anchor Canada
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0385681534
• ISBN 13: 9780385681537
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 608