Freedom

The story of Walter and Patty Berglund’s “Freedom” reflects the experience of an entire generation that lived through September 11, the invasion of Iraq, an economic crisis, and elected Barack Obama president.

In a brilliantly resurrected tradition of major 19th-century prose, Jonathan Franzen ponders whether freedom of choice is possible, whether we know what we are striving for when we want freedom, and how easily we sacrifice our loved ones for the illusion—or ghost—of it. Franzen’s previous novel “The Corrections” (2001), which won the U.S. National Book Award, placed the writer among the classics of American literature and brought him worldwide fame. “Freedom” is likewise a sharp and wise look at family life in contemporary America. But while the generational conflict in “The Corrections” remains unresolved, the new novel is a story about children who defeated their fathers and, as a result, became no happier.