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FOLLOW-UP
Franzen’s final chapter

BY NINA WILLDORF

Consider it a happy ending.

Jonathan Franzen, author of the best-selling novel The Corrections (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), won the National Book Award on November 15 in what could be called a triumph of a book’s value over an author’s boo-boo.

Over the past few months, Franzen found himself in the center of a media storm after making controversial remarks about the selection of his novel as an Oprah Book Club pick (see "An Author’s Story," News and Features, November 8). Referring to the book club’s seal, he told the Portland Oregonian, "I see this as my book, my creation, and I didn’t want that logo of corporate ownership on it." In light of that comment — and others — Oprah rescinded her offer for him to appear on her show, Franzen apologized, and reporters, literary agents, and book-publishing groupies jumped on the story. In New York magazine on November 5, unnamed literary-agent sources pinned him up and took stabs at him. "I’d like to punch the motherfucker," barked one surprisingly vehement editor.

But despite his critics’ strong feelings, the National Book Award’s judging committee saw his novel as the clear winner, awarding him the coveted prize and $10,000. And thus, Jonathan Franzen, who in his comments at the ceremony said he had recently "provided some blood-sport entertainment for the literary community," joined an illustrious group of laureates that includes William Faulkner, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, and Saul Bellow. His publisher took the win as a cue to print up 50,000 more copies, putting the current tally at 855,000.

Some critics, however, haven’t finished blood-letting. One finds fault with the fact that the chair of the supposedly independent judging panel, Colin Harrison, is the deputy editor of Harper’s magazine — where Franzen published a storied essay that provided anticipatory buzz for his book — and also a fellow author published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. "To pretend that those people are working in a vacuum is naive," says the industry insider, who prefers to remain anonymous.

But Franzen himself took a big sigh of relief. "I was happy when I got to the dinner and happy throughout," he writes via e-mail. "I think I would have been happy even if I hadn’t won."

And while his story has taken its twists, dips, and turns for the worse, the final chapter, it seems, is one of celebration. "Five of us went out to the Russian Samovar after the event and had vodka and blini and caviar," he says. "We sat at Joseph Brodsky’s old table, and I called my brothers on a cell phone."

Issue Date: November 22 - 29, 2001

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