lesliebeach 's review for:

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

---

I read this book as a chaser to Almanac of the Dead (Leslie Marmon Silko) and Palace of the White Skunks (Reinaldo Arenas) and the characters were so refreshingly suburban and relatable in their problems of overanalysis, small-scale betrayal, good intentions mis-performed, loves diverted and mistakes made that I could have hugged them all. It felt like dinner with old friends, rehashing the same old issues in hopes of a new result. Unlikely fodder to find refreshing, but I did.