Purity: A Novel

Brief Description: "A magnum opus for our morally complex times from the author of Freedom Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother--her only family--is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother has always concealed her own real name, or how she can ever have a normal life. Enter the Germans. A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads Pip to an internship in South America with The Sunlight Project, an organization that traffics in all the secrets of the world--including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong. Purity is a dark-hued comedy of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder. The author of The Corrections and Freedom has created yet another cast of vividly original characters, Californians and East Germans, good parents and bad parents, journalists and leakers, and he follows their intertwining paths through landscapes as contemporary as the omnipresent Internet and as ancient as the war between the sexes. Jonathan Franzen is a major author of our time, and Purity is his edgiest and most searching book yet"--Biographical Note: Jonathan Franzen is the author of four other novels, most recently "The Corrections" and "Freedom," and five works of nonfiction and translation, including "Farther Away" and "The Kraus Project," all published by FSG. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the German Akademie der Kunste, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres."Review Quotes: Franzen reveals moments of absolute genius. The cathartic power of tennis; the debilitating effects of jealousy; the fickle, fleeting nature of fame; and the slow death of youthful idealism are all beautifully captured.--Sally Bissell "Library Journal "Review Quotes: Franzen may well now be the best American novelist. He has certainly become our most public one, not because he commands Oprah's interest and is a sovereign presence on the best-seller list-though neither should be discounted-but because, like the great novelists of the past, he convinces us that his vision unmasks the world in which we actually live . . . A good writer will make an effort to purge his prose of cliches. But it takes genius to reanimate them in all their original power and meaning.--Sam Tanenhaus "The New Republic ""Marc Notes: A magnum opus for our morally complex times from the author of Freedom Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother--her only family--is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother has always concealed her own real name, or how she can ever have a normal life. Enter the Germans. A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads Pip to an internship in South America with The Sunlight Project, an organization that traffics in all the secrets of the world--including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong. Purity is a dark-hued comedy of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder. The author of The Corrections and Freedom has created yet another cast of vividly original characters, Californians and East Germans, good parents and bad parents, journalists and leakers, and he follows their intertwining paths through landscapes as contemporary as the omnipresent Internet and as ancient as the war between the sexes. Jonathan Franzen is a major author of our time, and Purity is his edgiest and most searching book yet--; Provided by publisher.; A huge-canvased novel about identity, the internet, sexual politics, and love from the author of Freedom and The Corrections--; Provided by publisher. Review Quotes: Franzen has created a spectacularly engrossing and provocative twenty-first-century improvisation on Charles Dickens' masterpiece, "Great Expectations" . . . "Purity "will be one of the most talked about books of the season.--Donna Seaman "Booklist "Publisher Marketing: A magnum opus for our morally complex times from the author of "Freedom"""""Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother--her only family--is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother chose to live as a recluse with an invented name, or how she'll ever have a normal life. Enter the Germans. A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads Pip to an internship in South America with The Sunlight Project, an organization that traffics in all the secrets of the world--including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong. "Purity" is a grand story of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder. The author of "The Corrections" and "Freedom" has imagined a world of vividly original characters--Californians and East Germans, good parents and bad parents, journalists and leakers--and he follows their intertwining paths through landscapes as contemporary as the omnipresent Internet and as ancient as the war between the sexes. "Purity "is the most daring and penetrating book yet by one of the major writers of our time. Review Citations:

Library Journal Prepub Alert 04/01/2015 pg. 60 (EAN 9780374239213, Hardcover)

Publishers Weekly 05/18/2015 (EAN 9780374239213, Hardcover)

Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2015 (EAN 9780374239213, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Publishers Weekly 05/25/2015 pg. 28 (EAN 9780374239213, Hardcover)

Library Journal 07/01/2015 pg. 76 (EAN 9780374239213, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Booklist 07/01/2015 pg. 33 (EAN 9780374239213, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Entertainment Weekly 12/26/2014 pg. 88 (EAN 9780385681513, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Franzen, Jonathan JONATHAN FRANZEN is the author of four novels, The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, The Corrections (winner of the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction) and the #1 international bestseller Freedom; two collections of essays, How to Be Alone and Farther Away; and a personal history, The Discomfort Zone. In 2010, TIME magazine named him the Great American Novelist. Franzen lives in New York City, New York, and Santa Cruz, California.