Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

How to Be Alone – Jonathan Franzen (2007)

How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen

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I think I went through a period where I decided that I would dislike Jonathan Franzen. He’s kind of a punching bag for a lot of people, and some of that is earned and some of that is unearned. I think in part people associate him with that list of writers who got their start in the 1980s, who are mostly white, mostly male, and range from elitist (by reputation) or l’enfants terribles. And for whatever reason, despite my being a generation younger than these […]

600 pages and somehow not quite enough

Purity by Jonathan Franzen

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While others were off working on sourdough starters, I spent quarantine somewhat obsessively reading all of Jonathan Franzen’s books (yes, even his admittedly dreadful first effort, The 27th City).  Purity is his most recent novel, and probably his best reviewed, but for me it failed to stick the landing. Franzen divides his books into sections told from different characters’ points of view.  Big, long sections.  When you’re with Andreas Wolf, you don’t care about anybody else, but then the section ends and then BAM, you […]

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen (2001)

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

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This is a novel that I loved when it first came out (when I was 21), and it has only grown in my estimation. The dumber parts feel less dumb (and mostly just more random), and the some of the parts I didn’t understand became sharper and clearer. It’s not too shocking that I decided to reread this book after both my mom and my mother-in-law were at their “Boomer Mom” worst this Christmas. My mom was uncharacteristically better behaved in general, but kids in […]

All ends well for the white man.

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“Like all great novels, “Freedom” does not just tell an engrossing story. It illuminates, through the steady radiance of its author’s profound moral intelligence, the world we thought we knew.” From NYtimes That quote makes me want to vomit. What is it about Jonathan Franzen that brings out the white men? The “let me explain how awesomely brilliant and true and beautiful this book is”-men? This book is shite. And I’ve been reading a lot of reviews to figure out why people love it. The […]

Throwing some shade on Jonathan Franzen: with a special guest star.

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I have this thing about White Male Authors. Sometimes their white male existential angst bothers me, and sometimes it’s not present enough in the writing to be noticed. It’s sort of like playing Russian Roulette, though. You never know when some weird sexual encounter, an act of bizarre masturbation, or mansplaining is going to arise. So, to help me work through some incredible shade I need to throw, I’ve recruited a guest star who knows how to throw incredible shade, whether it’s brushing off that […]

Great American Novel, This is Not

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I picked up Purity because I heard that it had a great female character, and in that regard I was not let down. I would actually argue that there are two. From what I know of his other books (which I’ve never read, but The Corrections is in that ever-growing pile of books-I-own-and-will-definitely-maybe-someday-read), Franzen is incredibly talented at filling his books with fully realized characters. Purity features a main cast of five very complex characters who you get to know very well and I really wish that I […]



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