Talk about advance publicity; Jonathan Franzen’s new book Freedom won’t be out until the end of the month, yet he is featured on the cover of the new issue of Time magazine on newsstands today. As every news source has breathlessly pointed out (it must have been in the press release), this is the first time in a decade that a living author has appeared on the cover (is that a good thing?) since Stephen King in 2000. Other writers Time has featured include Toni Morrison, John Irving, John Updike, Mario Puzo, John Le Carré, Rebecca West, and Virginia Woolf, but this is the first time they’ve used the label “Great American Novelist,” (in the story, Lev Grossman is a bit less grandiose, calling him “one of the best” living American novelists).

NPR was even earlier, with a review by Alan Cheuse on the 8/5 All Things Considered; not exactly a rave,

…despite the brilliance, or maybe even because of it, I found the novel quite unappealing, maybe because every line, every insight, seems covered with a light film of disdain. Franzen seems never to have met a normal, decent, struggling human being whom he didnt want to make us feel ever so slightly superior to. His book just has too much brightness and not enough color.

Franzen is also profiled in New York magazine this week and the September issue of Vogue.

Meanwhile, in most libraries, holds are light.

Freedom: A Novel Jonathan Franzen Retail Price: $28.00 Hardcover: 576 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux – (2010-08-31) ISBN / EAN: 0374158460 / 9780374158460

Macmillan Audio; UNABR; 8/31/2010; 9781427210494, $59.99

This entry was posted on Friday, August 13th, 2010 at 7:43 am and is filed under 2010 - Fall, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.