Hullabaloo

I've been inundated with the hullabaloo over Jonathan Franzen's new book, Freedom. Never read anything by him. I understand that he won book of the year nine years ago for a novel called The Collections. Hhmmnn.

From what I understand, the book, Freedom, is about a family that moved from St. Paul to Washington and failed in their endeavors over there. It's about how the freedoms in America can lead a family down the wrong road, or something like that. Hhmmnn. It makes me wonder how agents would have responded if someone with no name had submitted query letters for a story like that. I'm betting a bucket full of rejections would have ensued. I'm betting that an unpublished author would have no takers. And yes, probably for the same book, word for word.

But the man won book of the year for a prior novel, so he's in an entirely different place. Don't know anything about The Collections. But I did go to Amazon and took a look inside the book, Freedom. They allow you to read the first six or seven pages, and I did. It was nothing particularly good. Not to me. The first five pages were all backstory about a couple who lived in St. Paul who renovated their own house. The woman was young, the man from rural origins, and both Liberals.

OK. So what? By the time the story actually started, on the sixth page, what was happening was a meaningless discussion at a women's get-together concerning a problem the MC had with her son. I remember being criticized by an inexperienced agent for having a page of backstory near the beginning of my book, THE VASE. (Actually, she was an agent's assistant.) I wonder what she'd have to say about Freedom's five-page backstory beginning.

I will have to go check out The Collections. That must have been some book.