Sarah Churchwell

A rollicking satire on the way we live now

A complex drama of cultural politics and family life, Purity fulfils our great expectations of this prize-winning American author — in more ways than one

issue 29 August 2015

Jonathan Franzen’s latest novel, Purity, comes with great expectations. Its author’s awareness of this fact is signalled by a series of lampoons of writers expected to produce ‘big books’, writers named Jonathan and an assortment of other self-referential gags, but also the fact that its eponymous heroine, Purity Tyler, is nicknamed Pip.

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