The Discomfort Zone is Franzen's memoir of growth from his boyhood as a "small and fundamentally ridiculous person," through an adolescence both excruciating and strangely happy, into an adult with embarrassing and unexpected passions. It's also a portrait of a Midwestern middle-class family weathering the turbulence of the 1970s and a vivid personal history of an America turning its back on a certain idealism.
Daring, honest, and written with the comic scrutiny and unqualified affection that marks Franzen's fiction, The Discomfort Zone tells of the formation of one young mind in the crucible of an everyday American family.
Reviews
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Jonathan Franzen is one of those rare authors who read their own work with skill. He may not have quite the panache that a professional audiobook narrator would bring, but his lively and well-paced reading of his memoir is delivered in a pleasant voice that is easy to listen to. When he's remembering his complex relationship with his parents, he is fascinated and mystified; when he considers the state of the country, he's furious; and when he's recalling his early pursuit of sex, he is painfully funny. Through it all, he is articulate. Franzen says that in real life he's a "bit of a mumbler." Can't tell it from this excellent production. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
About the Author
JONATHAN FRANZEN grew up in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. He is the author of three novels—The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, and The Corrections—and a collection of essays How to Be Alone. His honors include a Whiting Writers Award in 1988, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, and the National Book Award (for The Corrections). He has been named one of "Twenty Writers for the 21st Century" by The New Yorker, for whom he frequently writes, and one of the "Best Young American Novelists" by Granta. He lives in New York.
