Die 27ste Stadt

by Jonathan Franzen, Heinz Müller (Translator)

Martin Probst lebt den amerikanischen Traum. Von den bescheidenen Anfängen im deutschen Viertel von St. Louis gelang dem Bauunternehmer mit Beharrlichkeit, Fleiß und Durchsetzungskraft der Aufstieg in die höchsten Kreise der Stadt im Mittelwesten der USA. Als Erbauer von "The Arch", dem monumentalen Wahrzeichen von St. Louis, genießt Probst höchstes Ansehen und wird von seinen Mitbürgern für seine Unbestechlichkeit, seine Integrität und seine Fairness ebenso bewundert wie für sein mustergültiges Familienleben. Erfolgreiche Typen wie Probst sind gefragt in St. Louis, denn die einst mächtige Metropole zehrt nur noch von den Träumen einer glorreichen Vergangenheit, während sie in der Gegenwart verzweifelt gegen den rasanten Niedergang und ihren zunehmenden Verfall ankämpft.

Eine schlagkräftige Waffe gegen steigende Kriminalität und urbane Verwahrlosung glaubt Probst in der neuen Polizeichefin S. Jammu gefunden zu haben, auch wenn eher konservative Kreise daran zweifeln, ob die junge Inderin, ebenso gut aussehend wie ehrgeizig, die Richtige für den schwierigen Job ist. Doch selbst ihre Kritiker ahnen nichts von S. Jammus geheimen Plänen, die Macht in der Stadt an sich zu reißen -- ein Ziel, für das ihr jedes Mittel recht ist, vom Psychoterror bis zu terroristischen Anschlägen. Hemmungslos bedient sich Jammu dabei der versteckten Begierden und Schwächen ihrer Widersacher, um deren Ansehen zu schädigen und sie gegen einander auszuspielen. Für Probst, der sich trotz seines wachsenden Misstrauens nicht der unheimlichen Faszination Jammus entziehen kann, beginnt ein Albtraum, der ihn und seine Familie zu zerstören droht.

Obwohl Jonathan Franzens erster Roman bereits 1988 in den USA erschien, wirkt Die 27ste Stadt irritierend aktuell und gegenwartsbezogen. Das hat einerseits sicher mit dem Thema Terrorismus zu tun, welches nicht nur Franzen bereits in den Achtzigern stark beschäftigte (man denke nur an Don DeLillos Mao II). Stärker noch beeindruckt Franzens rigorose Auseinandersetzung mit den Überfremdungsängsten der weißen amerikanischen Mittelklasse, die hier in beklemmender Form Realität annehmen. Fast schon exemplarisch führt der Autor vor, wie hinter der Fassade des schönen Scheins liberaler Normalität die ungebrochene Bereitschaft lauert, Macht und Besitz mit aller Gewalt zu erhalten. Die Angst vor den Fremden (die "indians" im Original sind bewusst doppelsinnig) erweist sich so als Spiegel der eigenen verdrängten Kolonialisierungsgeschichte: "the indians are coming (back)."

Begeisterte Leser von Franzens Die Korrekturen erwartet in Die 27ste Stadt ein spannungsvoller, sehr dynamischer Roman, der im Vergleich zu seinem Nachfolger zuweilen etwas undiszipliniert und unnötig komplex erscheint, aber dennoch überzeugend Franzens schriftstellerisches Können unter Beweis stellt. --Peter Schneck

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction, Literature, Unfinished, Contemporary, American

670 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen's latest novel Crossroads was published in 2021, and is the first in a projected trilogy.
Franzen has contributed to The New Yorker magazine since 1994. His 1996 Harper's essay "Perchance to Dream" bemoaned the state of contemporary literature. Oprah Winfrey's book club selection in 2001 of The Corrections led to a much publicized feud with the talk show host.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the running for one of the worst books I've ever read. When I think of the hours I wasted on this, I want to cry rage-tears.

One week later...

It took me a while to fully understand why I loathed this book. Finally, after a weekend camping with friends and their families and their friends and their families, I understood: it lacks any generosity of spirit. It does not enjoy its own characters, nor their stories, nor this twenty-seventh city where they live and die, St. Louis.

My weekend was like many other such trips: full of people I loved, liked, didn't know, was annoyed by; kids running around screaming and laughing; political diatribes and mellow conversations about fishing and supportive affirmations and passive-aggressive put-downs and gossiping and storytelling and one-upmanship and bonding on both superficial and deep levels. It was a slice of life featuring many sorts of people, much like many other slices of life where people come together who are similar and disparate. It was a human experience, quite unlike this book.

On the face of it, this is a book that I'd like. It is a thick, dense slice of life combined with a nihilistic, often absurdist political thriller. I like the immersive experiences; I like a certain degree of cynicism about human nature; I like books that live just a little off to the side from actual reality. But it fails on all of those fronts. My book this weekend was one by Vonnegut; this book lacks that master's necessary lightness of touch when it comes to unreal scenarios and farcical behavior. Vonnegut's absurdist style feels like a soft, teasing breeze; this book is a depressing, inexplicable downpour out of nowhere. A bleak outlook on how humans engage with each other can be exhilarating when the tale told is an airtight trap or a mordant dose of horror. But this book offers up nihilistic takes on human nature across such a wide canvas, within such a loose, sloppy narrative, that any points made are inevitably lost within the gassy bloat of it all. It feels like the nihilism of a young person who is precocious and certainly knows the importance of such basic things as research and three-dimensional characterization, but who knows very little about actual life. Juvenile, poorly-earned nihilism. Worst of all, the "slice of life" that is much of this book was impossible for me to enjoy. It punishes its characters; it degrades them... for what reason, to what end? What kind of slice of life shows life to solely be a game of assholes trying to dominate - or ignore - other assholes? Was this Franzen's whole take on human nature? This is not a slice of any real life that I'm aware of; rather, it is a slice of callow, masturbatory nonsense that is jerking off to its own supposed cleverness. A book that doesn't really understand nor even particularly care for its characters is not a book worth spending any amount of time on.

And that diatribe above doesn't even mention its repulsive engagement with race (e.g. why exactly do all of the manipulative, murderous invaders have to be from India - what's the point there, just because? e.g. why do Franzen's black characters make me think that the author didn't actually know any black people prior to writing this?) or its repugnant handling of its female characters (e.g. it saves its most heartless, most nauseating ending for its most admirable female character; e.g. it lets its ruthless female villain's potentially fatal flaw be her unspoken longing for the touch of a man) or its cluelessness about how to construct a compelling narrative (e.g. after a brutal kidnapping is depicted, Franzen decides its time to spend a dozen or so pages on a debate between power brokers over real estate speculation - as if that kidnapping of a major character is just another narrative turn in a book full of such turns) or its ignorance of how depth of characterization should be achieved (e.g. why would a reader care about endless backstory in the last quarter for characters shown to be worthless pieces of shit throughout the preceding 400 pages? did the author not realize that understanding his villains' motivations first would have made them less of an obnoxious trial to read about?) or or or...

That goddamn BLOAT. This huge book is like a compendium of amateurish missteps made by an author of undeniable talent, even brilliance. It impressed many upon its release, back in 1988. That's not surprising; people are often fooled by talent, by cleverness. Even when there is a hollow at the core, where the heart should be.

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the decades after the American Civil War St. Louis grew to become America's 4th largest city, by the 1980s it was the 27th! Jonathan Franzen's monster of a debut takes the appointment of one-time Bombay police chief, the American born S Jammu, as Chief of Police of the St. Louis County as the opening bow of a extremely detailed, darkly satirical and very well written county and city wide conspiracy that has huge ramifications for many of those involved especially the main protagonist, a mostly apolitical property magnate. Frantzen's use of a real American city but completely fictional characters and events is pretty daring and he pulls it off with aplomb.

The downside for me was that although a compelling narrative, it just didn't seem to mean anything or should I say, say anything? Critically it was seen as a fine literary work where Franzen creates a whirlwind political and wider conspiracy to ruin and debase the American Dream with darkly comedic satire; but their lies my problem with it, what American Dream, the city had been spiralling downward for decades! I'd just call it a very well written and conceived thriller, with a whole lot of scrumptious and innovative detail and characters, with a plot that just won't quit! Despite its length (small type, 500+ pages) it's absolutely worth a read, being such a well thought out and daring (to a degree) debut. 7 out of 12.

2022 read

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”His face was sifting through her hair, seeking skin. She twisted around in his arm and let him kiss her throat. Over his slicked-back hair she saw the hotel room’s ‘luxurious’ bedspread, its ‘contemporary’ art print, the ‘distinctive’ roughcast ceiling. He unbuttoned the top of her blouse, snorting intermittently. Probably the best metaphor for the State was sexual obsession. An absorbing parallel world, a clandestine organizing principle. Men moved mountains for the sake of a few muscle contractions in the dark.”

S. Jammu is a high flyer, a woman so nakedly ambitious that, even when she isn’t inspiring a few muscle contractions in the dark, she is dripping with confidence and competence. She rose through the police ranks quickly in India, and when the opportunity arises to take a job as the St. Louis chief of police, she realizes the New World is hers to conquer.

This isn’t just a young, Indian woman coming to Missouri to take a job. Her whole network comes with her. The things she learned that helped her succeed in India will prove equally effective in the Gateway to the West. She has a wealthy mother who is connected to the very highest levels of power. A tsunami of real estate money floods the streets of St. Louis right under the noses of the powerful elite who run the city. Foremost of these men is Martin Probst, who was instrumental in building the Arch. His reputation is impeccable, and Jammu’s network soon hones in on him as the man who can turn dissenters into supporters. They target his daughter, and when she proves elusive for seduction, they turn to his wife Barbara. Destabilize the marriage and then Jammu will do the rest.

Probst is naive in the face of ambition. He has drifted in a bubble of irreproachability for a long time now. What do you do once you’ve built an Arch? His life’s work is really already done. Everything going forward will pale in comparison. A man seemingly devoid of sexual passions will soon find himself consumed with desire that may marginalize or even destroy him.

The politics in this novel are fascinating to see unfold. We discover the numerous strings that are tied to Jammu and the ponderous grinding of the St. Louis political machine, that is trying to catch up with an agile enemy that it doesn’t even see as an enemy. I actually found myself unnerved by the lack of morality, the emigrant who is more capitalist than the rat bastard American businessmen, and the unquenchable greed. I feared Jammu because I could see how easily someone like this can fool people for too long. Success is rarely questioned in the charismatic, the beautiful, and the determined. The dirty dealings behind the gorgeous facade are too rarely exposed.

This is a very ambitious first book. The prose already shows the promise of what we will see in future Jonathan Franzen books. The plot is monstrous, and human behavior is cast as bleak as the darkest Shakespearean play. The novel does bog down in the middle. Some kindling needed to be thrown on the cooling bonfire. Despite the traffic jam in the midway part, I still managed to finish this book in two days, driven by a desire to see if the young Franzen could actually pull this all together. There are loose strings that other reviewers complain about, but I always feel that life is messy and good novels should reflect that as well. I am surprised that he wasn’t subjected to a deeper editing, but his editors must have recognized the promise he was showing and chose not to rob him of his voice.

Franzen was 29 when it was published, but if you look at his picture on the back cover, you’d swear he was still peering in the bathroom mirror looking in vain for the first bristles. I’m planning to read his second novel, Strong Motion, very soon. I’ve ignored the early Franzen novels for too long.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a big weird book, and the first novel I've been able to get into after a depressing reading rut. For some reason every reviewer on here seems to have hated or at least been disappointed by this book, but I thought it was a fun and unexpectedly bizarre read. Sure, it sagged a bit in the middle, but what 500 page book doesn't? I really haven't been able to get into any fiction in ages, and I wolfed this thing down in three days, looked forward to picking it up when I had to put it down and everything, which I'm grateful for because whenever that stops happening I'm scared that I've just stopped liking books.

The Twenty-Seventh City takes place in mid-eighties St. Louis, which has been infiltrated by a nefarious Indian police chief bent on evil conspiracy for obscure and convoluted reasons. Its plot mostly concerns said conspiracy and its impact on various members of the St. Louis economic elite. I can't say that it all made a lot of sense to me or that it was a perfect book by any means, but I found it very engaging, in part because I didn't understand the basic premise (nefarious Indian police chief...?) and was dying to know what the fuck was going on.

Franzen is one of those writers who seems to know a lot (or at least enough) about a lot of things, which I generally find fun, though this book does include some pretty tiresome play-by-plays of various sporting events, and I was soooo relieved when he seemed to forget about his boring birdwatching shtick a quarter of the way through. Other people on here complained that there were too many characters, but all the important ones were distinct and compelling enough to keep straight and maintain my interest. Some of the little writerly experiments (e.g. lapsing into present tense, creating unnecessary suspense and confusion by holding back key information about what was happening and to whom in a scene) were annoying, but on the whole the prose was super solid and did have some especially nice moments and good descriptions.

I think there are some pretty interesting flaws in this novel, such as its tepid, nervous effort to deal with racial themes directly. My impression of this must be influenced by reading this sixteen years after its publication and in the shadow of recent news out of Ferguson, but the black characters in the book are sort of weirdly there-but-not, which is especially odd considering how significant the black community is to many of the book's major events. I felt like this elision was sort of intentional, but it was kind of a craven sort of intentionality, like Franzen wanted to engage with the racial stuff but didn't quite have the nerve.

Anyway, I have zero memory of The Corrections (aside from an image of a childhood friend's suburban living room and garage, for some reason...?), though I remember having liked it at the time, but I know I enjoyed this more than I did Freedom. I feel like I heard people complaining about Patty after Freedom and saying Franzen doesn't know how to write female characters, and I thought of that charge pretty often while reading this. I think it's very often bullshit when readers of either gender accuse writers of not being able to write the opposite gender. It's one thing to point out that certain male writers always make two-dimensional, lame women, because that's definitely true, but I don't think anyone in good faith could accuse Franzen of that. He does have a very specific type of female character, and it was interesting to see her represented (in a few different ways) in this book. Franzen's women are kind of fucked up and ruthless in a specific way that I don't think I've quite seen anywhere else. To me that doesn't mean that he doesn't "get" what being a woman is like, it's just that he's writing about very specific, certain kinds of people who might not actually exist anywhere else except inside his mind. And I don't think that really has that much to do with gender, or with some essentialist experience of what "being a woman" is really like. Maybe your experience of being a woman isn't like Patty Berglund's or like Barbara Probst's, but maybe he isn't trying to represent your experience, and maybe there are some other women out there who think these characters represent something real to them. Personally, I like seeing that in a writer's work -- a unique and defined view of what people and the world are like -- and I enjoyed The Twenty-Seventh City because I found Franzen's view compelling, or at least entertaining.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The guiding principle of Martin’s personality, the sum of his interior existence, was the desire to be left alone.



If all those years he’d sought attention, even novelty, and if he still relished them, then that was because attention proved him different and solitude begins in difference.”
― Jonathan Franzen, The Twenty-Seventh City

Franzen's freshman effort is striking. First, just one long gaze at the picture of Franzen on the back and it makes me think this kid must have been gnawing on ideas for this book in his mother's womb. Seriously, he looks like he might be wearing the same deodorant his dad gave him at puberty.

Anyway, I was inspired to read this book because I was heading to St. Louis for a couple days and figured given the recent Ferguson-inspired race tensions, there might never be a more appropriate time to crack Franzen's novel about an Indian woman who takes over as the St. Louis chief of police. There is sex, violence, politics, intrigue, etc.. It is a thriller that aspires to be literary, or a thriller written by someone who is simply writing in the wrong genre.

The book is ambitious, messy (plot threads abandoned all over the place), inventive, cracked in places, but destined to stick around. I say that knowing that there are some serious Franzen haters out there. I also say that knowing this isn't his best work (by far). But in 1988, Franzen wrote a novel that seems to have almost perfectly captured the paranoid, xenophobic, social and race conflict that surrounds President Obama (birth certificate, etc). Imagine while reading this novel that Obama is Jammu and the United States is St. Louis and let the details slide from Ferguson to the Gateway Arch and there you are.



Franzen's fixation on the American family (both in its function and disfunction) is in pupae form here. Family dinners, tensions between spouses, extra-marital encounters, spoiled children, holiday tensions, they all germ here. His prose is great, if a bit uneven (brilliant in parts and boring in others). His plot is complicated. His setting masterful. Again, this isn't a masterpiece, but it was a clear indication of his future ambition and trajectory.

[Marion · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 🌟
Franzens Debütroman !
Den dramatischen Verfall einer amerikanischen Großstadt im Auseinanderbrechen einer glücklichen Familie zu spiegeln - dies wollte hier Jonathan Franzens Plan sein.

Ein erfolgreicher Bauunternehmer, eine Polizistin, die zur Rettung der Stadt aus Indien geholt wird und viele andere merkwürdigen Figuren bestimmen diesen Roman. Ein indischer Clan, der versucht mit Hilfe von Terror und Verschwörungen sich diese Stadt im amerikanischen Mittelwesten, unter den Nagel zu reißen.

Ein Gesellschaftsporträt und ein Familiendrama könnte man meinen.

Leider machen jedoch zu viel Detailverliebheit und zu viele Erklärungen oder Konstruktionen diese Geschichte langatmig und nur mäßig spannend. Ab und an habe ich sogar komplett den Faden verloren und mich auch gelangweilt. Jedoch hat das Buch auch erzählerische Stärken. Genau diese polyperspektive Erzählweise hat mich fasziniert und mich dieses knapp 630 Seiten Buch überhaupt lesen lassen.

Für mich ist hier ein Autor in den Anfängen, dessen Arbeit auf jeden Fall, durch diese besondere Erzählweise, ausbaufähig ist. Ich bin gespannt ob er diesen Schreibstil in seinen folgenden Büchern beibehalten hat und freue mich auf Weiteres von ihm.

Dieses Buch kann man, muss man aber nicht lesen.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

What follows is the intro to a (for now) abandoned attempt to a long piece on this novel that was based on some academic work (which can be found on my academia.edu page) that I had done on it. If you are on the fence about reading T27C, though, do consider clicking through to the Millions and LARB articles before making your decision!

When Jonathan Franzen's first novel The Twenty-Seventh City had its 25th anniversary re-issue back in September of 2013, it was almost as ignored as much as it was when it was first published in 1988. While Eric Lundgren in The Millions wrote a poignant and nostalgic reflection on the novel and its relationship to the city of St. Louis and Nina Martyris contributed an excellent piece on the novel's complex portrayal of the Indian-American experience in the LARB, Paurl Segal wrote in Slate of its many failings. And that, at least as far as I could tell, was pretty much that.

The 27C is definitely not without its faults, but it does a lot of things very well indeed, and if you are a fan of Don Delillo or Thomas Pynchon you will recognize their influence on the book, which attempts to 'unveil' certain previously hidden or unacknowledged economic and sociological aspects of our lives to us. And though critics such as James Wood would decry any such attempts to go beyond the 'proper' scope of the novel (i.e., the investigation of the 'soul' of the isolated individual) as what Wood called 'hysterical realism', Franzen's novel largely succeeds in its aim to get us to confront how our individuality is predicated and threatened by vectors of power and history.   Lev Grossman, writing in Time Magazine, captures the ambitions of books like this superbly:

What I see now when I look at books like White Teeth and Infinite Jest and Underworld is—among many other things—an attempt to gesture at the infinite, overabundant, overwhelming complexity of reality, and the increasing force with which that complexity is borne in upon us by means electronic and otherwise (i.e. by the overabundance of blogs like this one). Those books rarely end without a suggestion that they could have gone on and on indefinitely, because the world’s narrative resources are just that inexhaustible. You rarely meet a character, even a minor one, without getting the impression that the camera could wander off with them, instead of with whoever the hero of the moment is, and the result would be as rich and interesting a novel as the one the author actually wrote. You can imagine those books as endlessly ramifying trees of story, their branches dividing and dividing until the reader gets the point, which is that they could branch and divide forever and still not capture the full complexity of the world around them.

If you don't like these kinds of novels, don't read them. But if you do, this one will open you up to considering, among other things, the role that capitalism plays in your life while you aren't watching! Very few novels have attempted such a feat, and in this twenty-nine year old's first novel, we see many of the above characteristics deployed with the maturity of a much older writer.

Franzen's latest book, Purity won't attempt any such feats: he's long since changed his mind about the kinds of things that fiction ought to be doing. Oh, I'll read it, and probably enjoy it well enough, but it probably won't remain bubbling away in my veins long afterward the way The Twenty-Seventh City did—and does, to this day.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Jonathan Franzen but this book frustrated the hell out of me. It’s so close to being a four star read or even better than that. But, it just can’t get out of its own way. I can’t even begin to describe the plot. There are an enormous amount of characters. That became a problem when one of them popped up again and I had to stop and remind myself who it was. That happened frequently. There are long stretches where it’s really excellent. But, there are also boring subplots that just take the wind out of the whole thing. I would read four or five pages sometimes and realize I hadn’t been paying attention lol.

Also, I’ve been battling the flu lately so that may have played a part in my frustration with this book. I lacked concentration at times 😂 Not a book to read when you’re sick 🤒

[Billy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. It's hard to say this, since Jonathan Franzen has more talent in writing than I will ever have even tying my shoes. But compared to "Strong Motion" and "The Corrections", this book is tiresome, and falls unmistakably short of its ambitions. There are some hints of his gift (on more consistent display in later works) for hyper-perceptive and realistic accounts of the moment-by-moment consciousness of his characters; if only his regard for his characters in this one were more evenly distributed. Also, later on he writes with more humor, too. But I do like the fact that the book tackles themes of public civic participation and terrorism in the form of serious fiction -- why should the pulpy mystery novels have all the fun? Also, the hunting scene (esp. pp. 161-162) was masterful. Again, you could probably convince someone this was Don Delillo if you didn't show them the cover.

. . . . .

The fact that he's written only a few things so far gives me the rare chance to say I have read the entire ouevre of an author I like, once I get through this one. But I have to say, I have more fun reading this if I think of it not as early Franzen, but as bootleg Delillo.

[Mattia Ravasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Featured in my Top 5 Jonathan Franzen Books: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKJrZ...
Video-review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68qnEs...

An incredible debut novel, a wonderfully Pynchonian work, and proof that Franzen can be awesome even with something different from the Midwestern Family Saga.

[Lori · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hey, uh, Jonathan, I'd like my week back. That week I spent reading this piece of you-know-what? I know, I know, I read you backwards. Totally my mistake. I started with The Corrections several years ago, which I dearly loved. Then I read Strong Motion, which wasn't nearly as satisfying, but was still a worthwhile read. And now this. I stuck with this one to the very end because Strong Motion redeemed itself only in its latter pages. I kept thinking, okay, Jonathan, tie up a few of those loose ends. Make someone act humanely, decently, believably. But, uh, that never happened. So I spent an entire week of my life reading about horrible people doing horrible things to each other.

I get that misunderstandings and miscommunication are your trademarks, and you have used those to great effect in your other works. But here we have a dysfunctional family in the midst of a city run by evil corporate interests, policed by a department that is headed up and infiltrated by leftist Indian terrorists, who are spied upon by a cartoonish racist general. Next time, pick one or two evils. This form of absurdity only works when you have some kind of "everyman" you can actually relate to in order to find the experience at all palatable.

What I guess I find most unbelievable of all is the high praise this book received from professional reviewers. I can only assume that they were most impressed by the actual writing - the careful details and the elaborate plotting, maybe. But surely not the characters. I mean, what happened to you? Does everybody in your life hate everybody else? Could an entire city truly be populated by people who at every level of personal and civic involvement just want to use others to further their own ends? Does no one in your world have any emotional connection with other humans? The kind of connection that requires a little sacrifice or benefit of the doubt? Sometimes you came close, but inevitably you pulled them away again. I'm just not sure that works for an entire novel.

Oh, and please. Why on earth did you even try to write about those African American characters? Clearly your heart wasn't in it. Let's say you actually did understand something about their lives. You didn't know what to do with them, couldn't find any sort of real plot for them, and the whole thing came off as a pointless afterthought. Stick with what you know: middle class white folk.

[C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book held a very intersting ballance between being a page-turning thriller and a slow-paced, almost boring novel of mid-city civics. Franzen's first novel, it should have replaced the map of St. Louis with a chart of characters, a la most Tolstoy translations; the geography never was quite as confusing as the fifty+ main characters, their relationships, and which corperations or city office they controlled.

The plot is oddly conservative, centering around a plot by foreign (Indian) investors to manipulate the realstate market of St. Louis. The only character who sees the truth is a crazy, anti-communist, anti-immigrant, racist former military man, who tries to rally a group of local buisiness men to resest the bewitching new female police chief. But this is Franzen, so I can't read too far into the political implications, as everyone ends up being basically unlikable yet sympathetic, so there is no one who really is "the hero" or "the villian," though by the end of the book you pity both the instigators of the plot and its victims.

"The Twenty-Seventh City" ended reading more like DeLillo that "The Corrections," mainly because of the combination between paranoid post-vietnam terrorist plot (see: The Players) and mid-life, middle-America angst (see: everything by DeLillo). Slow to start, the book eventually works itself up to a near thriller pace as the bizarre land-grab plot begins to involve planned terrorist attacks, kidnapings, and Soviet era brain-washing.

Good, but not required reading.

[Andrew]

Let's talk about the comparisons between two of my favorite writers of the present era, Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace. Both write great, sprawling novels that, while epically long, aren't very difficult. Both express the unique anxieties and lonelinesses of our present era, and will both probably be remembered by future scholars as representative writers of our times. But in both cases, their first novels were really pretty weak. The Broom of the System feels like a young writer's rather weak attempts to engage with Pynchon and followers. And guess what, The 27th City does too.

But let's be clear. There are still a great many moments in the book that are really gorgeous. Franzen is beginning to touch on the themes he would later hit on-- the decline of the American dream, family issues, conspiracy, etc. But rather than focusing on a few beautifully realized characters, he goes for the Ben Hur cast-of-thousands thing, which honestly is just confusing. Martin Probst, one of our (more) central characters could probably fit fairly well into a later Franzen novel, but most everyone else is little more than a shadow dancing across the page. If you're a Franzen fan already, you might wanna read it just to get a good idea of the writer's arc, but otherwise, stick to Freedom or The Corrections.

[Holly · Rating 1 out of 5]

There should be a symbol for 'hated it.' One of the worst books I have ever read. Pretentious, agonizing, worthless, populated with extremely boring characters (in my opinion). What is it about? Some uninteresting combination of St Louis, Indian nationals, immigration and terrorism, a metaphorical story about metaphors, and Jonathan Franzen's love for his own vocabulary (or his thesaurus). I was actually angry at myself for finishing it, the Bataan Death March of books. If I ever read another Jonathan Franzen book, it will mean I've been body-snatched.

[Kiof · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fake review: How can someone so obviously intelligent be a mere transcriber of platitudes? (quote from the book, btw). Real review: One of the trademarks of Franzen´s writing is the aftertaste of cynicism readily apparent in every one of his rather brilliant psychological insights. So it is hard for the reader not to treat his work with a similair level of hypercriticism.
Like how the friend who makes you laugh the most isn´t neccesarily going to be a great stand up comedian, so every man or woman with some insight and a quick pen doesn´t make a novelist. Since maybe the sixties we have many intelligent imposters running round disguised as novelists. Franzen has a natural skill at the Novel, the one of the 1800s. Another metaphor for ya: all classical music is called classical, yet that is really a way of deferring to Mozart, choosing him as the defintive artist in the whole history of the so called classical genre. The same is true of the Novel. That 18th century kind isn´t the only form (and thank god) but it was the peak of a certain type of skill set, one that people rarely have a even a rudimentary form of now (hear anybody lately with a Mozartian skill at melody lately?). Well, Franzen, even this first book, shows the skills of a Tolstoy or a Eliot. Not saying he´s as briliant (he isn´t) but he´s got that elusive, much cherished skill set. Also, at the same time, he can write one hell of a page turner. This book, focused on city politics, has an incredibly boring plot in theory. It almost seems like Franz choose the most boring plot possible to see if could make it interesting. For the most part, he suceeds. The labyrinthine journey through the city politics of St. Louis (ugh, i know) is pretty interesting. This book, being a first novel, is full of mistakes. I think he tried too hard to put everything he knew into one book. And the book really doesn´t have to be as long as it is. Franzen obviously hadn´t found his voice yet. He uses pomo tricks, the kind of which are used as a buffer to emotion. He doesn´t do them any better or worse than anyone else, they just fit him worse considering how naked he can write human emotion and motivation. But the fact that he hadn´t found his voice yet actually works as a strength. The smug self assurence and hyper craft of Freedom is nowhere to be found. In its place you find a youthful enthusiam that is f´ing refreshing. Freedom felt like the work of a bitter, bitter man. This is the work of someone still enough in the thick of life to, if not know it more, feel it more.
An underrated, overlooked book, but overlooked for perhaps a fair reason.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Azért az lenyűgöző, hogy az olyan technikai elemeket, amiket egy átlag író egy életen át tanul, Franzen mintha csak a kisujjából rázná ki: ebben a nagyregényben a leírások pontossága és szellemessége, valamint a párbeszédek életszagúsága* arra utal, hogy egy vérbeli profival van dolgunk, aki már a debütálásakor teljes fegyverzetben pattan elénk. Amitől viszont kevésbé vagyok lenyűgözve, az maga a történet.

Franzen a lejtmenetbe kerülő St. Louis krónikáját írja meg, ahol hirtelen rejtélyes indiaiak jelennek meg és felettébb piszkos, és legalább ennyire kacifántos politikai machinációkba kezdenek – semmitől sem riadnak vissza, hogy véghez vigyenek valami szörnyűséget, amit le sem merek írni, egyrészt a spoilerezés tilalma miatt, másrészt mert magam sem tudom, mi a fenét akarnak igazából. Ez a vonal bizonyos elemeiben hiteltelen, és úgy általában túl van írva, cserébe viszont elnyomja a regény összes többi, amúgy kifejezetten ígéretes mellékszálát. Őszintén szólva abban sem vagyok biztos, hogy mit akart vele üzenni az író. Az biztos, hogy az amerikai demokrácia kritikájaként mértékkel olvasható – legfeljebb az amerikai demokrácia önvédelmi képességének kritikájaként. Ugyanis azzal, hogy a fehérgalléros bűnözés mocskát Franzen kiszervezi mindenféle ravasz bevándorlókra, pont az élét veszi el a mondanivalónak: meghagyja ugyanis a lehetőséget az amerikai olvasónak, hogy azt higgye, nem ő maga, hanem mások (a „nem-amerikaiak”) jelentenek veszélyt a rendszerre. (Hogy szerencsétlen indiai olvasók mit szólnak ehhez az egészhez, abba meg bele sem merek gondolni.)

Mindent egybevetve azért nagyszerű, nyugtalanító rémmese ez egy sötét dimenzióból, és ha figyelembe veszem, hogy első regényről van szó, kénytelen vagyok leborulni a Franzen által használt technikai apparátus előtt. Ám annak azért nagyon örülök, hogy későbbi nagyepikus prózájában a szerző megtanulta elengedni a nagy, zűrzavaros sztorikat, és helyette átadta a helyet a kisebb történeteknek, amiket a szereplők közötti kapcsolat tölt meg dinamikával, és nem valami Frei Tamáshoz illő démoni összeesküvés.

* Párbeszédekről jut eszembe. Csak nekem tűnik úgy, hogy a magyar kortárs irodalom feltűnően kevés életszagú párbeszédet produkált az utóbbi néhány tíz évben? A legtöbb szerzőnk intelligensen hanyagolja is a dialógusok eszközét, aki pedig használja – mint legújabban Jászberényi –, az úgy beszélteti szereplőit, mintha azok tudtában lennének, hogy be vannak kamerázva. Az persze igaz, hogy minden irodalmi szereplő be van kamerázva (úgy hívják a kamerát, hogy író), de valahogy a lényege sérül a dolognak, ha erről értesülve vannak.

[Milan]

Interesantno mi je što se nekako dogodilo da sam Frenzenove knjige čitao obrnutim redom od vremena objavljivanja. Prvo sam pročitao Pjuriti, pa Slobodu, zatim Korekcije i tek na kraju 27. grad, knjigu koju je Frenzen prvu napisao.

Prijateljica mi je već skrenula pažnju da je 27. Grad najslabija Frenzenova knjiga. I zaista. (mada je i takva daleko bolja od bilo čega što je Dona Tart ikada napisala)

Ne znam šta da kažem o ovoj knjizi. Frenzen je počeo da je piše, Orvelove, 1984. godine, a objavio je četiri godine docnije. Radnju je smestio u pomalo imaginarni Sent Luis tog doba. Zanimljivo mi je što je glavna negativka… negativka. Žena. Pa još indijskog porekla. To sada ne bi prošlo. Zanimljivo je i što je Frenzen u ovoj knjizi pisao i o HIV-u (istina, ne pod tim imenom, već kao o nekom novom gripu, od koga pate mahom prostitutke). A to je bilo doba kada smo tek počeli da shvatamo da postoji ovaj virus.

Definitivno su mi i dalje najbolje Frenzenove Korekcija i Sloboda (možda baš tim redom), a 27. grad ostaje značajan kao prvenac jednog velikog američkog pisca (kome je, koliko sam shvatio, najveća mana što nema nalog na Tviteru).

Pre nekoliko nedelja sam naleteo na jedan zanimljiv i, čini mi se, objektivan članak koji se bavi likom i delom ovog pisca. Preporučujem da ga pročitate. Kao i Frenzenove knjige.

http://www.glif.rs/blog/dzonatan-fren...

[Joe Deutschmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Scathing take on St. Louis—all the digs that were relevant 20+ years ago still are, sadly. But I loved that aspect of the book. Everything else? Uh...sentence-by-sentence, it's great. It's Franzen—the prose is good. But the story...idk. The brown people in the book are either terrorists or speak in pretty flimsy ebonics. Just felt a little icky. And the plane-flying-through-the-arch (Spoiler! Like you were going to read this anyway...) was laughable. BUT. Franzen himself has acknowledged how much the book doesn't hold up. Obviously he's done much, much better work since he wrote this. He was in his mid-20s! I'm in my mid-20s. I'm not published. So.

Anyway—read The Corrections. Read Freedom. Read Purity. Read the nonfiction. Skip this one.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, if this book didn't contain so many references to Webster Groves I wouldn't have found it that great. "The Twenty-Seventh" city is a reference to St Louis and the plot is a bizarre takeover plot by Indian nationals. The identities of area notables and bigwigs are, by intent, not so carefully disguised and playing the game of "who's who" is fun. Find the place where Franzen goofs and calls Civic Progress by its real name, rather than the euphemistic title he gives it in the book (which has since slipped my mind).

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

So my official rating is 3.5 for this, but only because it was deceptively long and felt kinda drawn out parts. Really cool political drama but on a city scale (rather than just another Washington White House one), and it’s being St. Louis is pretty cool since it’s familiar + similar in size to Memphis. Definitely makes me think about how complicated politics can be even on local levels. Really cool structure of multiple narrative arcs but they didn’t converge as neatly as I would’ve liked. Overall, though, really good read.

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is commonly claimed (and I'd agree) - that Franzen is America's best current writer, and commonly claimed that this is his worst book - one he has even somewhat disowned. (It's a power move for a writer to say that one of their books is bad…) I actually enjoyed this one a lot, right until the last hundred pages or so in which (without spoiling anything) it took a somewhat dramatic turn, unravelled a principal character and submitted another to psychological torture and murder, which felt so unjust and pointless that I was unable to appreciate the main point of the novel, which was, I think, something about the apathy and dullness of 1980s America, whose citizens have become distracted by materialism and anomie and no longer care about nuclear war, civic engagement, or social justice. Young Franzen (he was 25 when this came out) intended to write a Pynchonesque "systems novel"; describing St. Louis on multiple levels, through the business elite, police force, ghetto, malls, youth culture, etc. and how all of these intermesh. I actually found the details about municipal ordinances and tax incentives enjoyable, adding a surprising level of detail that helped immerse me in the novel's main plot (a bizarre conspiracy by Indian expats to gentrify the downtown area via bribery, blackmail and other skullduggery). But with the exception of the main character, Martin Probst - a stock Franzen patriarchal archetype: dour, laconic, frugal, analytical, principled, Republican - most of the characters are flimsy and comical, and as the author moved on in his career he wisely shifted to his core competency, complex and claustrophobic portraits of family life.

Side point: after reading this I listened to some of this Franzen podcast, where a few writers analyse their love-hate relationship with the curmudgeonly 800-pound gorilla of American letters by reading all his books in order. On one episode the always brilliant Nell Zink mentioned an idea that she calls (following David Foster Wallace) "lexical genius", a fallacy writers believe: that knowing an exact term in the English language for everything in the world is valuable, or a substitute for genuine insight. She may be right, but this is also something I really appreciate in writers, and few do it well. (This book taught me the etymology of Velcro!) I remember first coming across it in this lovely scene in DeLillo's Underworld:

"Sometimes I think the education we dispense is better suited to a fifty-year-old who feels he missed the point the first time around. Too many abstract ideas. Eternal verities left and right. You’d be better served looking at your shoe and naming the parts. You in particular, Shay, coming from the place you come from."
This seemed to animate him. He leaned across the desk and gazed, is the word, at my wet boots.
"Those are ugly things, aren’t they?"
"Yes they are."
"Name the parts. Go ahead. We’re not so chi chi here, we’re not so intellectually chic that we can’t test a student face-to-face."
"Name the parts," I said. "All right. Laces."
"Laces. One to each shoe. Proceed."
I lifted one foot and turned it awkwardly.
"Sole and heel."
"Yes, go on."
I set my foot back down and stared at the boot, which seemed about as blank as a closed brown box.
"Proceed, boy."
"There’s not much to name, is there? A front and a top."
"A front and a top. You make me want to weep."
"The rounded part at the front."
"You’re so eloquent I may have to pause to regain my composure. You’ve named the lace. What’s the flap under the lace?"
"The tongue."
"Well?"
"I knew the name. I just didn’t see the thing."
He made a show of draping himself across the desk, writhing slightly as if in the midst of some dire distress.
"You didn’t see the thing because you don’t know how to look. And you don’t know how to look because you don’t know the names."
He tilted his chin in high rebuke, mostly theatrical, and withdrew his body from the surface of the desk, dropping his bottom into the swivel chair and looking at me again and then doing a decisive quarter turn and raising his right leg sufficiently so that the foot, the shoe, was posted upright at the edge of the desk.
A plain black everyday clerical shoe.
"Okay," he said. "We know about the sole and heel."
"Yes."
"And we’ve identified the tongue and lace."
"Yes," I said.
With his finger he traced a strip of leather that went across the top edge of the shoe and dipped down under the lace.
"What is it?" I said.
"You tell me. What is it?"
"I don’t know."
"It’s the cuff."
"The cuff."
"The cuff. And this stiff section over the heel. That’s the counter."
"That’s the counter."
"And this piece amidships between the cuff and the strip above the sole. That’s the quarter."
"The quarter," I said.
"And the strip above the sole. That’s the welt. Say it, boy."
"The welt."
"How everyday things lie hidden. Because we don’t know what they’re called. What’s the frontal area that covers the instep?"
"I don’t know."
"You don’t know. It’s called the vamp."
"The vamp."
"Say it."
"The vamp. The frontal area that covers the instep. I thought I wasn’t supposed to memorize."
"Don’t memorize ideas. And don’t take us too seriously when we turn up our noses at rote learning. Rote helps build the man. You stick the lace through the what?"
"This I should know."
"Of course you know. The perforations at either side of, and above, the tongue."
"I can’t think of the word. Eyelet."
"Maybe I’ll let you live after all,"
"The eyelets."
"Yes. And the metal sheath at each end of the lace."
He flicked the thing with his middle finger.
"This I don’t know in a million years."
"The aglet."
"Not in a million years."
"The tag or aglet."
"The aglet," I said.
"And the little metal ring that reinforces the rim of the eyelet through which the aglet passes. We’re doing the physics of language, Shay."
"The little ring."
"You see it?"
"Yes."
"This is the grommet," he said.
"Oh man."
"The grommet. Learn it, know it and love it."
"I’m going out of my mind."
"This is the final arcane knowledge. And when I take my shoe to the shoemaker and he places it on a form to make repairs—a block shaped like a foot. This is called a what?"
"I don’t know."
"A last."
"My head is breaking apart."
"Everyday things represent the most overlooked knowledge. These names are vital to your progress. Quotidian things. If they weren’t important, we wouldn’t use such a gorgeous Latinate word. Say it," he said.
"Quotidian."
"An extraordinary word that suggests the depth and reach of the commonplace."

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a huge mess, albeit a promising and fairly enjoyable one.
Franzen had been reading Pynchon, clearly, and he was ambitious in the best possible way. For a first novel, it's pretty decent.

It's interesting to see him write in this mode, also, having read later efforts that have taken him far away into nuanced characters, family dynamics, and larger and easier to follow narrative chunks. Part of me is a little sad, actually, that he abandoned this mode for that other one, though I certainly recognize how good he is at what he now does. He might have made for a fine Mr. Difficult himself.

One of the messiest aspects of this was the Pynchon-esque conspiracy. When Pynchon does it, I do sometimes find myself wondering if he's only playing or if he actually believes some of his more outrageous stories. Here, though, the conspiracy seems to be a projection of some kind of racial and economic panic, and one images that Franzen himself does not approve. There is no question of that kind of slippage between exaggeration and conspiracy nutjobbery that Pynchon brings, but at the same time, the narrative affirms without any room for doubt that the fears of a General Norris were 100% correct. It's hard to know what to make of this. Perhaps simply that the book's strategy fundamentally doesn't work.

One other thing that this book brought up for me was the never-ending american obsession with race and race and racism as its bedrock truth. I've read other reviews of this, and by GRers whom I respect, that suggest a disappointment that Franzen did not delve deeper or truly into the problem of race, but rather danced somehow around its outskirts, treating economics and legislation and special elections and real estate. And yet, when did economics and legislation and special elections and real estate -- all of the tangible realities of inequality and injustice -- become mysteries to be solved, problems to be uncovered, revealing the bedrock incontrovertible truth of an endemic racism that is its own explanation? Surely this is backwards?

The left (and not only our good friend Pynchon) has long indulged in conspiracy-theories all its own. The truth is always occult and it is always horrible. Only those with the hermeneutic apparatus of impenetrable theory (and its equally bullshit trickle downs) can see reality for what it is. Economics must bow to a sort of original sin which pollutes us all, the only thing not needing further unpacking, decoding, explanation, and that is our curse of racism. We all bear it, and it is the cause of the economics and injustice, not their symptom, their fruit, their strategy, their result. It's a quasi-religious belief verging on puritanism, and pessimistic in the extreme. But why should this be the case? Surely the machine works the other way around?

It's hard, in short, not to connect this sort of complaint about this book to the kind of incessant, ineffective railing against trump voters which takes as a given that we have now exposed the evil at the heart of america, and does not think that this requires anything by way of explanation. In my view, a book that treats criminal justice, economic power, real estate, money, etc. has in fact done a much better job getting at race and racism than yet another tract about how we are all hopelessly, terribly polluted, in need of shaming, of purification, of cleansing, perhaps by means of violence. In this respect, the 27th city seems to me right on the money in its choice of subject matter and emphases, and it is perhaps no wonder at all that it is such a promising, terrible mess.

[Grigoris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Έκανα μια έρευνα στο διαδίκτυο σχετικά με το βιβλίο,διάβασα τα επαινετικά σχόλια και τους εγκωμιαστικούς χαρακτηρισμούς (π.χ ''κλασσικό'') μα δεν μπορώ να πω πως ενθουσιάστηκα από το ''τρομερό παιδί'' της σύγχρονης αμερικανικής λογοτεχνίας.Προσπάθησα,δεν μπορώ να πω πως δεν προσπάθησα.Επί έξι ημέρες το έκανα βόλτες από καναπέ σε καναπέ,ώσπου εγκατέλειψα την προσπάθεια να τελειώσω αυτό το ογκώδες βιβλίο (στην σελίδα 342).

Το Σεντ Λούις βρίσκεται σε παρακμή.Από την τέταρτη θέση που βρισκόταν στην λίστα με τις σημαντικότερες πόλεις των ΗΠΑ,πέφτει στην εικοστή έβδομη.Έτσι οι αρχές αποφασίζουν να διορίσουν ως αρχηγό της τοπικής αστυνομίας την Σ.Τζάμου ,μια νεαρή Ινδή.Φιλόδοξη ,η νέα αρχηγός της αστυνομίας επιδιώκει την οικονομική ενοποίηση του κέντρου με την περιφέρεια του Σεντ Λούις.Έτσι συγκρούεται με τον μεγαλοκατασκευαστή Μάρτιν Προμπστ. Χρησιμοποιώντας αθέμιτα μέσα εναντίον του(θα βάλει να σκοτώσουν τον σκύλο του,να ξελογιάσουν την γυναίκα του) προσπαθεί να επιτεύξει τους στόχους της.

Χαοτική αφήγηση και υστερικός ρεαλισμός.Άθλο αποτελεί η ανάγνωση του βιβλίου,που όπως έμαθα ειναι και το πρωτόλειο του συγγραφέα.Ο αναγνώστης χρειάζεται να καταβάλει πολύ κόπο για να μην αφαιρεθεί και να ξεχωρίσει τα πρόσωπα που παρελαύνουν στις σελίδες. Προτάσεις ασύνδετες,μεγάλες,δίχως κόμμα,δίχως τελεία.

Δεν ξέρω αν αυτή η λιποταξία οφείλεται σε δική μου ανεπάρκεια ή στο γεγονός πως ο Φράνζεν το έγραψε σε νεαρή ηλικία.Πάντως μια εβδομάδα ανάγνωσης χάθηκε.Θέλω την εβδομάδα μου πίσω!

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book will give you a tight butt and killer abs. Franzen's first novel makes you work incredibly hard in order to keep up with the breathtaking variety of writing experiments he undertakes, such as (1) switching back and forth between time frames with no visible cues (e.g., line breaks); (2) writing whole page (or multiple page) sections without referring to character names; and (3) "skipping" entire events, requiring the reader to infer what happened between chapters (or parts of a chapter). It feels like Franzen was trying out a lot of techniques, trying to settle on his voice. For someone who reads just a few pages a night before bed, this was challenging. Franzen has an incredible knack for capturing interpersonal relations and describing what people do physically during a dialogue. I found myself skimming the parts about political intrigue (writing about this subject doesn't seem to be his strong suit -- nor did this seem to be what the book was really about) so I could get to the parts about interpersonal dynamics. Even so, the way Franzen closes the book really seems to speak to our times, even though the book is 20+ years old. I haven't read Franzen's masterpiece, The Corrections, but I plan to. His keen insight seems similar (in my mind) to David Foster Wallace's, but Wallace seemed to have an aching love for his subject matter and Franzen seems a little wary of it.

[Carriefeibel · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those confused about the tone of this book, keep in mind it's a farce. Yes, you can see Franzen beginning to develop his trademark of creating deep characters with mixed intentions and loveable weaknesses. But some characters never gel and some get dropped (Duane never gets unmasked?). Who cares? The fun of the book is in the teetering-on-the-edge-of-plausibility plot. Franzen tries to imagine how St. Louisans, his staid, conflicted but conventional St. Louisans would react to terror, fires, kidnapping, spying and political intrigue. Parts of it are really funny, in a ridiculous way. Even the violence had a cartoonish aspect. That will either offend or simply disorient some. I personally am drawn to the playful bitterness of Franzen, and admire how he experimented with the "what if" scenarios that unfold here. All St Louisans and true Franzen fans should at least start this book. You'll either delight in the craziness or know right away to stop.

[Eugene · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, ok...

Obviously, it's a little more awkward than his later novels. But I liked the plot. And, obviously it was really, aggressively boring at times. But it was ambitious and poignant at others. It took forever to read, it frequently depressed me, and I didn't really enjoy the process. But also I feel like it's good?

iT'S A fRANZEN.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was Jonathan Franzen's debut novel and he wrote it about his hometown, St. Louis. The St. Louis connection was fun. It took me awhile to get into the book and figure out what was going on. I think that part of this might have been that the novel when originally submitted was over a thousand pages and Mr. Franzen was immediately told that it had to be severely edited before it was publishable. I am not sure if the author or an editor did the majority of the editing, but it may have delayed some of the clarity of the book's theme. Despite this, it did become clear after a while that the book was a huge satire (with hopefully a large dollop of exaggeration) on the worst of politics and the lengths individuals would go to reach their desired ends. Without being a spoiler, I found the conclusion hilarious and very satisfying. I would definitely recommend this book.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Franzen's first novel, and what a great one. A slightly absurdist plot, set in St. Louis, what more do you want?

[Jesse Solis · Rating 4 out of 5]

At one point, the author refers to a touchdown as “How Wonderful,” and that is why Daddy Franzen will always be the goat.

[Jake Abrams · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish; soulless; clearly written by a nerd with neither heart nor game; obsessed with cleverness and snickering; does nothing to lift up my spirit or increase my capacity for empathy