How to Be Alone (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Jonathan Franzen
- First Published: 2002
- Type of Work: Essays
- Time of Work: 1994-2002
- Setting: New York City, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Missouri
- Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays
- Subjects: Twentieth century, Authors or writers, Twenty-first century, Novelists, Fame, 1990’s, Middle age, Isolation, Smoking, 2000’s
- Locales: New York, NY, St. Louis, MO, Chicago, IL, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Colorado
Almost all the selections in this book were written while Jonathan Franzen was in his thirties and still struggling to survive as a writer of what he repeatedly calls “serious fiction.” “Scavenging” gives a good picture of his mental and physical state. Not unlike the dedicated writers portrayed in George Gissing’s New Grub Street (1891) and in Knut Hamsun’s Sult (1890; Hunger, 1899), Franzen lived in cold and squalor, sustained by ideals and ambition. He furnished his transient rooms with orange crates, doors converted to tables, bookshelves made from...
[The entire page is 2066 words long]
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