Tag Archives: Jonathan Franzen

One approach to the broken dreams of the American suburbs: realistic expectations

Posted on by

After reading Jonathan Franzen’s latest novel Crossroads, I have a not-original answer to the problem of the brokenness lurking behind the promise of the American Dream in the American suburbs: realistic expectations about what life in the suburbs is like.

Photo by Lara Jameson on Pexels.com

Much is expected of the American suburbs and Americans love them for multiple reasons. They are the land of opportunity. Home to the middle-class and the hard-working. A symbol of success. A setting meant to guarantee success to future generations. The land of private single-family homes where owners can control their own destiny.

What if the suburbs could never deliver on all of these promises? What if it was only available to some? What if the humans who tried to pursue these goals still faced difficulties and heartbreak? What if the suburbs covered up a whole host of issues in American society?

Numerous novels, films, songs, and creative works have addressed these questions over the last century. They have clearly showed the cracks in the suburban facade, the tragedies masked by the suburban sprawl.

But, these works often struggle to propose a solution. Get rid of the suburbs? Do not move to them in the first place? Stop promoting them?

If anything, these works serve as a cautionary tale: the suburbs may not be as impressive as they are made out to be. They are home to the problems all humans face as well as have their own particular issues due to their histories and current realities.

At the same time, through policy and ideology, millions of Americans have moved to the suburbs. Balancing the dire stories told of life falling apart in the suburbs alongside the narratives of success and comfort in the suburbs, is there a more realistic narrative available about what suburban life is?

Suburban fiction and the unhappy white suburban families of Jonathan Franzen

Posted on by

There exists a common fictional narrative involving the American suburbs: the white nuclear family that looks successful from the outside – home, children who achieve, high-status communities, good jobs, well-educated, etc. – is internally falling apart. The suburban veneer is thin; when it is scratched away or falls off, the white suburban family is hurting. Such a story has been told in various forms for decades.

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com

I have recently read several of the big novels of Jonathan Franzen. In both The Corrections and Freedom, the various members of white suburban families are not doing well and neither is the family as a whole. He switches perspectives from different family members (and some connected characters) who are experiencing both their own personal struggles and ones connected to their upbringing and those ongoing ties. The suburban homes are not happy ones; they are settings for unresolved conflicts, anger, and a sense that life should have turned out better.

Is this the same kind of suburban fiction that has been tread many times before? The settings have changed a bit – the suburbs of the 2000s are not exactly the same as the new mass produced suburbs of the 1950s, there is new technology available, etc. – and Franzen has a particular style. However, the stories felt similar to others in key ways.

(Disclaimer: I have not read all of Franzen’s work or his most recent novel set in the Chicago suburbs.)