How to be Alone

How to be Alone
Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen's ‘The Corrections’ was the best-loved and most written-about novel of 2001. Nearly every in-depth review of it discussed what became known as 'The Harper's Essay,' Franzen's controversial 1996 look at the fate of the novel. This essay is reprinted for the first time in ‘How to be Alone’, alongside the personal essays and painstaking, often funny reportage that earned Franzen a wide readership before the success of ‘The Corrections’. Although his subjects range from the sex-advice industry to the way a supermax prison works, each piece wrestles with familiar themes of Franzen's writing: the erosion of civic life and private dignity, and the hidden persistence of loneliness, in postmodern, imperial America. Recent pieces include a moving essay on his father's struggle with Alzheimer's disease and a rueful account of Franzen's brief tenure as an Oprah Winfrey author.As a collection, these essays record what Franzen calls 'a movement away from an angry and frightened isolation toward an acceptance – even a celebration – of being a reader and a writer.' At the same time they show the wry distrust of the claims of technology and psychology, the love-hate relationship with consumerism, and the subversive belief in the tragic shape of the individual life that help make Franzen one of the sharpest, toughest-minded, and most entertaining social critics at work today.

JONATHAN FRANZEN

HOW TO BE ALONE

ESSAYS

Copyright (#ulink_11d25480-cb02-5029-a464-5ec38a11cc41)

Fourth Estate An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2002

Copyright ©Jonathan Franzen 2002

Jonathan Franzen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007153589

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007389063

Version: 2017-06-09

Praise (#ulink_ddf66301-9d63-59f7-8aaa-23a30e614a1c)

From the reviews of How to Be Alone:

‘Stunning … Each page is studded with irresistible writing which leaves you breathless for more. Franzen’s strength is his ability to combine a rigorous intellectual approach with an upbeat energy, using language which touches the heart as surely as the head’

Time Out

‘How to Be Alone reveals [Franzen] to be an impressively versatile non-fiction writer, equally sure of touch and tone whether reporting on the US prison system, reviewing sex self-help books, or joining the debates about privacy and smoking with a rare acuity and sanity’

Guardian

‘Franzen possesses an incredibly strong narrative voice – his tone is packed with confidence, exuberance and energy … In its ambition, its intellectual vigour and its knowledge, [How to Be Alone] more than justifies its place on any bookshelf … At his best, [Franzen] is nothing less than mesmerising’

Sunday Business Post

‘Full of quips and aphorisms, [Franzen] is the Montaigne of our times, both inventively comic and deadly serious … Beguiling … You love him for his scrupulous honesty and for his arresting originality’

Harpers & Queen

‘Franzen’s almost casual brilliance with language can leave you giddy with the thrill’

Irish Times

‘An engrossing read where the combination of plot with technical detail is exquisite … ideal for anyone who enjoys intelligent writing’

Herald, Glasgow

‘Much thought and craft has gone into these essays … [Franzen’s] writing is an antidote in itself to the gloom it so eloquently describes’

Sunday Telegraph

DEDICATION (#ulink_94b5d4c0-f208-5511-b3f6-c5cf37482c8f)

FOR KATHY CHETKOVICH

Contents

COVER (#u227a1603-965f-5a07-9f8c-deea7f26cb7c)

TITLE PAGE (#u456529f1-aac1-56ef-9d76-6ca8d31d4f66)

COPYRIGHT (#u950a63b8-9933-5a8f-82cc-83a6db6f2acf)

PRAISE (#u80ef20b1-4446-5fd8-b575-bb04177d798c)

DEDICATION (#u8e7d8f4e-e016-5283-ac9b-601a414229a0)

A WORD ABOUT THIS BOOK (#u8d92c1b7-3ba0-580f-9144-10e73fe51223)

MY FATHER’S BRAIN (#ubc09e57f-a3cc-55c3-b925-9253849ed156)

IMPERIAL BEDROOM (#ue150bf11-8d17-5da8-af43-f0bcf5d6a385)

WHY BOTHER? (#u3a0fe77f-06ab-5592-91dc-e91834a851f6)

LOST IN THE MAIL (#litres_trial_promo)

ERIKA IMPORTS (#litres_trial_promo)

SIFTING THE ASHES (#litres_trial_promo)

THE READER IN EXILE (#litres_trial_promo)

FIRST CITY (#litres_trial_promo)