Freedom

Making it clear from the start that anything that can go wrong probably will (and that this is one of the hazards of freedom), Jonathan Franzen sets his sights on the Berglunds—ex-jock turned housewife, Patty; eco-warrior Walter; their two children, Joey and Jessica—and proceeds to tear their lives apart. When Franzen's latest novel, Freedom, is at its best it's impressive, with Franzen taking the suburban psychodrama of the privileged classes, the politics of ecology, and all the justifications people make for doing all the wrong things, and conjuring up something uniquely enveloping that's also uncomfortably familiar. The downside is Franzen's clinical approach, which too often makes his prose read more like a psychological case study than fiction. Owing to this duality, Freedom soars and drags in an exhausting circuit despite the intermittent presence of Walter's foil: his college roommate and Patty's secret obsession, Richard Katz. When Franzen moves the Berglunds from heartland Minnesota to Washington, DC and, via nice-guy Walter, gets on his soapbox about the destruction of the planet, Freedom stalls out. As this intentionally epic novel proceeds and the emotional damage continues to pile up, Walter falls for his pure-hearted assistant Lalitha, Patty and Richard make a go of it and, predictably, more trouble and suffering ensue. Yet, despite the book's excesses, Franzen's commanding prose carries the day and he manages to negotiate a believably redemptive ending for most of his characters. There is much to recommend here but beware—too much Freedom can be bad for you.