The Twenty-Seventh City, by Jonathan Franzen

The Leonard Lopate Show | Oct 31, 2013

Jonathan Franzen has been called one of the most important living fiction writers in America. His 2001 novel The Corrections won the National Book Award and Freedom was named as one the best books of 2010 by Time, the New York Times Book Review, and Publishers Weekly, among publications. We’re going back to his very first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City, written in 1988 and set in his home town, St. Louis. In the novel, St. Louis is a quietly dying city until it hires a charismatic young woman from Bombay, India, as its new police chief. The story predicts a number of shifts that were to come decades later in American life: suburban malaise, surveillance culture, domestic terrorism, and paranoia.

Leave your questions for Jonathan Franzen below!

Be alert for scams. WNYC never asks for nor accepts money for coverage or interviews. Anyone making such a request does not represent WNYC.

Top Stories

The Classroom/Technology Pipeline

Advice for Appreciating Music

30 Issues in 30 Days: Trump Family Profiteering

New Jazz History Book on the Legendary Village Vanguard; NYC's Most Haunted Areas

YOU ARE ONLINE