First published 2018
Jonathan Franzen opens with personal territory in this essay collection spanning five years of writing. He dissects his complicated bond with an uncle, maps his early years navigating New York as a young adult, and shifts focus to the worldwide crisis threatening seabirds. The author of Freedom and The Corrections brings his characteristic wit and clear-eyed realism to each subject. These pieces reveal a writer grappling with his own contradictions while tackling literature and contemporary concerns that feel urgent given today's political climate. Franzen moves between intimate family dynamics and global environmental threats, showing how personal and planetary crises intersect. The collection captures a seasoned mind questioning itself and the world around it.
Genres: essays, american-fiction, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: clear-eyed, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: grappling-with-contradictions, personal-journey
Paperback · Farrar, Straus and Giroux