Join ASU’s TomorrowTalks with Jonathan Franzen Wednesday, October 5th at 6pm AZ time. TomorrowTalks is a student-engagement initiative meant to put students in conversation with authors who explain how they use their writing to address society’s most pressing issues. It’s led by the Division of Humanities at ASU and hosted by ASU’s Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.
This event takes place over Zoom and is free, although registration is required. Franzen will be discussing his book Crossroads, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. His book is set in December of 1971, and it examines a Midwestern family in the midst of a moral crisis. With careful attention to each of the family members, he interweaves their perspectives into a tale of suspense and complexity.
Thank God for Jonathan Franzen . . . With its dazzling style and tireless attention to the machinations of a single family, Crossroads is distinctly Franzen-esque, but it represents a marked evolution . . . It’s an electrifying examination of the irreducible complexities of an ethical life. With his ever-parsing style and his relentless calculation of the fractals of consciousness, Franzen makes a good claim to being the 21st century’s Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Ron Charles, The Washington Post
Jonathan Franzen has written six novels. He has won a variety of awards: the National Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Award, the Heartland Prize, and others. Visit his website to read more about him.
To learn more about TomorrowTalks and register for the event, go here.
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I enjoyed this blog post since it feels relevant, well-rounded, and engaging. Bringing up an event at ASU shows relevance to the school that each intern attends and promotes interaction between the magazine and the university. Those who follow up on our blog will not only go to the event but maybe even discuss Superstition Review with other people, promoting our magazine further. It is well-rounded because we read about the event, the author, the novel being discussed, and the importance of attending. We can find not only a link to register but awards that Jonathan Franzen has won and who he is. This makes the article very interesting to read. Learning about relevant events that followers of the blog would be interested in and about an author and his novels are all great grounds to cover for a literary magazine’s blog.
One of my favorite things about reading is seeing how authors create different characters and situations to reflect some of the most pressing issues our society is facing. I think it is really interesting how Franzen uses a family setting to do this. I would love to hear more about his intentions behind this book during the event. Also, I’m definitely adding “Crossroads” to by TBR!