Understanding Jonathan Franzen

The first comprehensive study to address Franzen's work to date, including his latest novel, Crossroads

Jonathan Franzen―novelist and essayist―is a critical darling, commercial success, and magnet for controversy. His career took off with the publication of The Corrections (2000), which won a National Book Award and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His follow-up, Freedom (2009), received so much attention that it started a debate over the politics of critical attention. Love him or hate him, Franzen has proven to be a crucial figure in twenty-first century American letters, and the publication of each new novel has been a major literary event.

In Understanding Jonathan Franzen, Timothy W. Galow studies Franzen's first five novels and surveys his most recent, Crossroads, which was published to much fanfare in 2021. He traces Franzen's work from its roots in late twentieth-century literary theory and experimental postmodernism through the socially conscious family novels for which the author is best known. This careful analysis provides a new lens for viewing each of the works and demonstrates why Franzen's stories of (white, bourgeois) American life have inspired and provoked readers for over two decades.

Timothy W. Galow is professor of English at Carroll University. He is the author of Understanding Dave Eggers.