Freedom will be remembered as a story that captures a very strange chapter in American history. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but the mood of the last decade is something Franzen nails. His characters represent the amoral fugue state we drifted off into collectively after 2003. I’m not even sure his hollowed out characters could realistically course correct, yet they do, and for that reason I was somewhat disappointed in the novel.
Equally terrifying, alt-country act Walnut Surprise represented one of the worst musical movements of the decade. We have only ourselves to blame.