literary life

Jonathan Franzen’s Biography Will Be Titled Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 05: Novelist/essayist Jonathan Franzen attends panel
Photo: Slaven Vlasic/2013 Getty Images

Jonathan Franzen, who hates everything from the internet to snark (heh), apparently has no problem with mid-career biographies. The notably cranky author of The Corrections and Freedom gave his blessing to Swarthmore English professor Philip Weinstein to write a biography of him titled Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage. Weinstein titled it so, reports the New York Times, because Franzen is “working toward turning rage into comedy.†He was also careful to note that this isn’t going to gossipy: “It’s not an exposé of Jonathan Franzen … It doesn’t pretend to be a full-scale biography. It’s too early for that. He’s in full career mode. Someone later, a generation from now, will do that biography. It’s a report on who he is.†Everyone should tweet about this, because that’ll make Franzen, like, so peeved.

Jonathan Franzen Will Have a Biography