Jonathan Franzen talked with Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio / Photo by Tom Campbell
"My parents didn't read books," said Jonathan Franzen Tuesday night. "My mother frowned on novels because they aren't true." Franzen spoke at a sold-out Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul as part of the Talking Volumes book-club series.
Franzen joked that his parents' lack of interest in serious literature "forced me into a life of concealment."
His fourth novel, "Freedom," recently was published to a round of high-profile positive reviews (including this 4,000-worder from The Guardian, which has such complete plot details that it works if you want to be able to pretend, at a cocktail party, that you have read the book). It shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, and was selected for the Oprah Book Club.
Franzen talked with Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio about a range of topics -- Oprah, Obama, birdwatching, Kafka and national politics. His talk will be re-broadcast Thursday (Sept. 23) on MPR's "Midmorning" program.
Referring to his 2001 disagreement with Oprah over her blessing of his novel "The Corrections," Franzen insisted, "I don't hate that woman. She's done wonderful things for books." Franzen will appear on Oprah's show later this fall in connection with his new novel.
The news that Obama had picked up "Freedom" at a Martha's Vineyard bookstore last month was "incredibly flattering," Franzen said.
Describing himself as a liberal Democrat, Franzen said he thought the newly passed healthcare plan, far from being "socialist," was a moderate move for much-needed reform. He said he ditched his onetime plan to try and write a novel about Washington, D.C., when he realized, "who can compete with the actual national political scene?"
