Reading Order
Freedom Reading Order
Jonathan Franzen's Freedom (2001) is a complete standalone novel. It follows Walter and Patty Berglund, liberal environmentalists from Minnesota who move to a gentrifying street in St. Paul in the 1980s, and traces the collapse of their marriage across three decades — through their son Joey's departure and alliance with the neighbors they despise, Walter's work in coal-country environmental protection, and their shared friend Richard Katz, a rock musician who loves Patty. Published to immense acclaim; placed on the cover of Time magazine.
Where to start
Freedom
Complete Freedom Book List
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Freedom
Jonathan Franzen·2010·Standalone — Walter and Patty Berglund across three decades; the collapse of a liberal marriage and the question of what freedom means when you have everything; National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Time's novel of the decade - Buy
The Corrections
OptionalJonathan Franzen·2001·Franzen's earlier masterwork — the Lambert family, Alfred with Parkinson's, one last Christmas; the companion to Freedom and generally considered the better of the two by readers who have read both; either can be read first
Freedom — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Freedom a standalone?
Yes — Freedom is entirely self-contained and not connected in plot or character to Franzen's other novels, including The Corrections. Walter and Patty Berglund do not appear elsewhere in his fiction.
Should I read Freedom or The Corrections first?
Both are standalones and can be read in either order. The Corrections is generally considered the more fully realized of the two and is more often recommended as the place to start Franzen. Freedom is in some ways more accessible — its narrative is more straightforwardly linear — but The Corrections is richer and more formally inventive. Readers who read Freedom first often find The Corrections an even better book; readers who read The Corrections first often find Freedom a satisfying companion.
What is Freedom about?
Freedom is about Walter and Patty Berglund, liberal Minnesotan environmentalists of the baby-boom generation, and the slow collapse of their marriage across three decades. It is also about Walter's work protecting a cerulean warbler habitat in the coalfields of West Virginia — which requires him to make morally compromising deals with a coal company — and about their friend Richard Katz, a rock musician who loves Patty. At its broadest, the novel asks what freedom means: freedom to do what, from what, and what it costs.
Why is Freedom called Freedom?
The title has multiple resonances: the freedom of birds (the novel's central environmental concern is the cerulean warbler, a migratory bird whose habitat is threatened by mountaintop-removal mining); the political freedom championed by the Bush administration in the 2000s (the novel is deeply engaged with the Iraq War period); the freedom that each character claims to want and that none of them knows how to use. Franzen was writing partly about the American post-Cold War moment when the absence of constraints felt like permission to destroy everything.
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