Jonathan Franzen (pictured, via) has been working a new novel entitled Purity.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux will publish the book in September 2015. Philip Weinstein will share an analysis of Purity in his forthcoming biography, Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage.
Here’s more from The New York Times: “The story centers on a young woman named Purity Tyler, or Pip, who doesn’t know who her father is and sets out to uncover his identity. The narrative stretches from contemporary America to South America to East Germany before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and hinges on the mystery of Pip’s family history and her relationship with a charismatic hacker and whistleblower.”
(more…)
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Author Philip Weinstein plans to pen a biography profiling writer Jonathan Franzen. Reportedly, Franzen himself has given his “blessing” for this project.
Bloomsbury will publish Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage in Fall 2015. Weinstein has conducted a two-hour interview with Franzen; he will also source information from Franzen’s autobiographical essays. The book will also include an analysis of the new novel that Franzen has been working on.
In an interview with The New York Times, Weinstein explains the concept of the book: “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.” (via Gawker)
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William Faulkner was arguably the greatest American novelist of the twentieth century. In a new biography of the writer entitled 
Becoming Faulkner: The Art and Life of William Faulkner, Philip Weinstein narrates the events of Faulkner’s life while discussing their impact on his work. Weinstein is Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English at Swarthmore College. In the following excerpt, Weinstein gets inside Faulkner’s head as the novelist struggles with recurring problems involving his family and his addiction to alcohol.
He was not unconscious the whole time. Specific details would flare into focus, then flee as swiftly as they had come. All he knew for sure was that he could not move, though he could not remember why. Where was he anyway?…An image arose in his mind: he was in New York, at his favorite hotel, the Algonquin. He had come here to complete the contracts with Random House for The Unvanquished: which meant that it was November 1937. He had come here to forget something as well – he suddenly knew what that was – but he had less luck there. Meta Carpenter was who he wanted to forget, who now appeared in his mind’s eye with aching clarity. He concentrated again, his screen of consciousness widened. Depressed – he had reasons for it – he had been drinking steadily the night before. He had drifted from bar to bar, then seen no need to stop once he returned to his room. He vaguely remembered the sensation of booze sliding down his throat, the sought-after numbness it radiated. But how had that moment led to this one? Straining once more, he got hold of another image. The last thing he had done was to make his way into the bathroom and settle onto the toilet seat, bottle in hand. Time for one more swig before bed.
Bright sunlight bore down on him, and the room was unaccountably full of cold, moving air… Looking up, he saw an open bathroom window. Had he imagined last night that he was still in Mississippi, where on going to bed he would often open the window a crack, even in winter? Then he recognized the noise he had been hearing for some time now: the hissing sound of a steam pipe, just behind him, his back resting on it. He had passed out in this bathroom. His mind, still whirling, permitted larger oases of lucidity. He realized suddenly that he was in the wrong place: he had no business lying against that pipe. He could tell from its sound how hot it had to be, but his back – which ought to know – had reported no signals of pain. It didn’t even hurt now. How long had he been in this position? When would he find the energy and focus needed to get up again? Like’s Joe Christmas caught in the dietitian’s room in Light in August - lying flat out in his own vomit and realizing that, for better and surely for worse, he was completely in others’ hands – Faulkner waited for someone to come. Eventually someone always did. This was a hell of a way to begin the day.
The moment is emblematic in its self-destructiveness, though its gravity is new. He had been drinking heavily – and occasionally passing out – for over twenty years. But up to now he had been lucky enough to avoid New York hotel steam pipes, as well as other complications linked to a lifetime of boozing. Some time later that morning – minutes? hours? – he heard knocking, at first cautious and then louder…Within a few minutes Jim Devine – Random House fellow writer and boon drinking companion – ha
