Volume 53, Number 16 · October 19, 2006
Coming in from the Cold
By Denis Donoghue
The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History
by Jonathan Franzen
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 195 pp., $22.00
Jonathan Franzen has written three novels, The Twenty-seventh City (1988), Strong Motion (1992), and—his best to date—The Corrections(2001). A book of essays, How to Be Alone, was published in 2002. And now we have a memoir, a 'personal history.' He has also given many interviews, some of which have been published in magazines. Readers who want as much autobiographical detail as he is willing to provide should read The Discomfort Zone along with How to Be Alone. The theme common to both books is: how I learned to make my peace with the world and, by reading books, to be alone but not too alone; how I came in from the cold of being a difficult young man.
Review, 3701 words
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