Freedom

A Novel

By: Jonathan Franzen

Narrated by: David LeDoux

Length: 24 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

From the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections, a darkly comedic novel about family.

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world. But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz - outré rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival - still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become “a very different kind of neighbor,” an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's intensely realized characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

©2010 Jonathan Franzen (P)2010 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"The Great American Novel." ( Esquire)

"It’s refreshing to see a novelist who wants to engage the questions of our time in the tradition of 20th-century greats like John Steinbeck and Sinclair Lewis . . . [This] is a book you’ll still be thinking about long after you’ve finished reading it." (Patrick Condon, Associated Press)

“Writing in prose that is at once visceral and lapidary, Mr. Franzen shows us how his characters strive to navigate a world of technological gadgetry and ever-shifting mores, how they struggle to balance the equation between their expectations of life and dull reality, their political ideals and mercenary personal urges. He proves himself as adept at adolescent comedy as he is at grown-up tragedy; as skilled at holding a mirror to the world his people inhabit day by dreary day as he is at limning their messy inner lives . . . Mr. Franzen has written his most deeply felt novel yet—a novel that turns out to be both a compelling biography of a dysfunctional family and an indelible portrait of our times." (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)

One of the best books I have read in years.

Jonathan Franzen has an insight into human emotion like no other. Because it is set in the recent past, It’s a wonderful way to look at previous decades, particularly should you be a person over 50. However, there is value in this book to people of any age. I will miss Walter and his family.

Great story made even better by the Narrator.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Franzen's ability to create and get you deep into his characters is phenomenal.

Who was your favorite character and why?

This is the not the type of story where you relate to a character. This is far more sweeping and spans an incredibly wide swatch of characters and their lives.

What does David LeDoux bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I have thoroughly enjoyed what the performers bring to most audio books of mine. But David LeDoux goes beyond all that. The strength of conveying emotion and the richness of the telling of the story make a great book even better. Bravo!

Absolutely loved it!

This was my first book I've willingly purchased and listened to! And now I'm hooked. I really loved this story and the way it was narrated by David LeDeoux. Thank you for the great experience!

Unparalleled Performance

I am an avid audio books fan with a background in performance. This is one of the best, if not THE best readings I have heard. I highly recommend!

Unforgettable

The Berglunds and their co-conspirators are unforgettable characters, painfully drawn from bits and pieces of a suburban landscape familiar to many of our generation. Franzen weaves the chapters of his novel with such patience and skill that when one character's story stopped and another's began, I felt only momentary loss. The narrator is excellent (although I agree with the criticism of the stereotypical Indian dialect) and Franzen has created another masterpiece.

WORTH A LISTEN, HOWEVER, REALLY LONG

Freedom is amusing. Franzen captures the time, the mood and the causes well. The story, however, didn't need to meander down every scene in the 1970's, 80's, 90's and turn of the millennium. Brutal editing would have improved the tale. Still, it is worth a listen.

Book For Killing Time, Nothing More!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would not recommend this book cause it is mainly a sad story of a handful of people's lives. We all live lives with ups and downs and no one is writing our stories. Why, cause it would be just as time killing boring as this book! 24 hours was TOO LONG! I finished it cause I like finishing things, but I'm so glad I'm done with this book!

Would you listen to another book narrated by David LeDoux?

The narrator was fine.

Could you see Freedom being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

NO NO NO! Forget this!!! I would never watch this as anything!

The book that divided a nation.

I don't think I've ever come across a book that has had so many extremes in its reviews. You would almost think that people were reading completely separate novels. On one end of the spectrum the reviews are glowing: brilliant, extraordinary, book of the year, and so on. The other end, not so much: boring, overrated, pretentious crap.

And I am not here to offer some definitive pronouncement, I'm just throwing my two cents into the hat. I got a tell you . . . I am closer to the glowing end. I can't help it, I think this book is genius.

I'm not going to go into the synopsis; it's been covered ad nausea, but I will say this: as with any novel it is the telling not so much the tale that is key. Though the novel is at its heart a love triangle the branches from this singular root are many and varied. It is also a story of family, a critique on technology and sex and success.

It is true that Walter and Patty, their son and daughter, their friends and neighbors are not often easy to like. They all have their cringe-worthy moments. Even Walter, the most charitable of the bunch, has moments of pure narcissism. But that's what I love, I love it when I, as the reader, understand more about a character's motivation than the character, who, more often than not, is lying to themselves.

There has also been some controversy regarding the narration. Again, count me in the "thumbs up" column. I think David does an excellent job of capturing the tone of the novel. He underplays the absurdity.

Very good

This kept me interested in spite of its length. Loved the narrator and the story kept moving along at a good pace.

Hats off to Jonathan Franzen

In this intricately plotted book, Jonathan Franzen looks at society the way a naturalist looks at a newly met life form - he picks it up, looks underneath, and pokes around inside to see how it works. This he does with individual characters, the family (oh, the family!) and larger institutions as varied as the music business, the environmental movement, and corporate America. He presents the noblest dreams of the human heart and our dirtiest longings. With everything and everybody having a flip side, the flip side of freedom is examined and found, er, wanting. I loved this book and expect to remember its characters - especially Patty and Walter - for a long time to come.