And it wasn’t, in Franzen’s view, just something random where his father had good days and bad days, but seemed to happen when there was some reason his father most wanted to do better or most wanted to communicate something. He describes his father’s efforts to cover up his diminishing abilities, and the effect those final years had on his mother.įranzen is struck by the fact that when his father was really far gone-at the level of a one year old at best-he could still pull it together once in a while, albeit in a minimal and very temporary way. My Father’s Brain is a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece on Franzen’s father’s deterioration and death from Alzheimer’s disease. How to Be Alone consists of fourteen essays. They are somewhat similar writers (same generation, critically highly regarded, mostly think of themselves as novelists but also write intelligent nonfiction social commentary essays like those in this book), and from what I understand were friends and mutual admirers before Wallace’s suicide. I suspect I was a little more interested in or a little bit more receptive to How to Be Alone because of the connections between Wallace and Jonathan Franzen.

I feel a kind of connection with him that I rarely feel with authors.

I have in recent years become quite interested in the writer David Foster Wallace.

How to be alone franzen