Synopses & Reviews
St. Louis, Missouri, is a quietly dying river city until it hires a new police chief: a charismatic young woman from Bombay, India, named S. Jammu. No sooner has Jammu been installed, though, than the city's leading citizens become embroiled in an all-pervasive political conspiracy. A classic of contemporary fiction,
The Twenty-Seventh City shows us an ordinary metropolis turned inside out, and the American Dream unraveling into terror and dark comedy.
Jonathan Franzen is the author of three novels: The Corrections, The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion. He has been named one of the Granta 20 Best Novelists under 40 and is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and Harper's.
St. Louis, Missouri, is a quietly dying river city until it hires a new police chief: a charismatic young woman from Bombay, India, named S. Jammu. No sooner has Jammu been installed, though, than the city's leading citizens become embroiled in an all-pervasive political conspiracy. Seen by many as a classic of contemporary fiction, The Twenty-Seventh City shows us an ordinary metropolis turned inside out, and reveals today's American Dream unraveling into terror and dark comedy.
"A novel so imaginatively and expansively of our times that it seems ahead of them."Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times
"A startling, scathing first novel about American ambition, power, politics, money, corruption and apathy."Jeff Jarvis, People
"Franzen has managed to put together a suspense story with the elements of a complex, multilayered psychological novel . . . A riveting piece of fiction that lingers in the mind long after more conventional potboilers have bubbled away." Peter Andrews, The New York Times Book Review
"Franzen goes for broke herehe's out to expose the soul of a city and all the bloody details of the way we live . . . A book of range, pith, intelligence."Margo Jefferson, Vogue
"A weird hybrid of realism and fantasy: municipal science fiction. Everything proceeds from a daring, outrageously unlikely premise."Terrence Rafferty, The New Yorker
"A remarkably accomplished first novel."Stephen Burn, The Times Literary Supplement
"Mr. Franzen has proved with this immodestly ambitious first novel that he has talent to spare. His is a worthwhile entertainment, this picaresque tale the principal vagabond of which is its own sinuous plot."Donna Rifkind, The Wall Street Journal
"Unsettling and visionary . . . The Twenty-Seventh City is not a novel that can be quickly dismissed or easily forgotten: it has elements of both 'Great' and "American' . . . A book of memorable characters, surprising situations, and provocative ideas."Michele Slung, The Washington Post
"Franzen's tour de force (to call it a 'first novel' is to do it an injustice) is a sinister fun-house-mirror reflection of urban America in the 1980s . . . There's a lot of reality out there. The Twenty-Seventh City, in its larger-than-life way, is a brave and exhilarating attempt to master it."Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times
"He has the kind of ability that can take what one would have thought the most mundane of cities and render it as an utterly persuasive labyrinth of mystery and meaning."Mark Feeney, The Boston Sunday Globe
"An imaginative and riveting examination of our flawed society. The Twenty-Seventh City provides a rare blend of entertainment and profound social commentary."Christine Vogel, Chicago Sun-Times
Review
"An All-American hybrid that is nothing less than brilliant." Dan Cryer, Newsday
Review
"A huge and masterly drama...gripping and surreal and overwhelmingly convincing." Laura Shapiro, Newsweek
Review
"Ultimately, Franzen's novel, like Jammu's plan, is about nothing but its own ingenuity: its power to fog the minds of unsuspecting subjects. Everything, including the author's emotional connection to the material, seems to have been sacrificed in favor of readability....He's an exceptionally skillful storyteller, but after a while even his gifts begin to look like tactics for evasion. What does it mean that St. Louis is under siege by this Indian woman? Surely he isn't trying to tell us that the solid civic and family values of the Midwest are being threatened by the Third World....This young novelist seems not to realize that plotting is more than technique that it's also a vehicle of meaning....By affecting not to care, Franzen creates a huge void in the center of his novel. He holds our interest yet we wonder how, in the long, arduous course of writing this novel, he managed to hold his own." Terrence Rafferty, The New Yorker
Review
"An All-American hybrid that is nothing less than brilliant." Dan Cryer, Newsday
Review
"As well as anyone I can recall, Mr. Franzen has managed to horrible phrase 'transcend the genre' and put together a suspense story with the elements of a complex, multilayered psychological novel. It is the sort of thing you might expect if Thomas Pynchon had borrowed an idea from Donald Westlake....In mixing genres, however, Mr. Franzen runs into some difficult technical problems. Part of the appeal of a thriller is that it brings order and resolution to the narrative....But Mr. Franzen will have little to do with easy explanations, because life doesn't have any either....I fear Mr. Franzen may pay a price in popular success for the uncompromising way he tells his story....But readers willing to participate in a fine novel will find more here than they are used to in such works....[This is] a riveting piece of fiction that lingers in the mind long after more conventional potboilers have bubbled away." Peter Andrews, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
A riveting work of suspense, an eerie fable of political life, a love story - this first novel by Jonathan Franzen, published to wide acclaim in 1988, is a sweeping and imaginative look at America in the twentieth century.
Synopsis
St. Louis, Missouri, is a quietly dying river city until it hires a new police chief: a charismatic young woman from Bombay, India, named S. Jammu. No sooner has Jammu been installed, though, than the city's leading citizens become embroiled in an all-pervasive political conspiracy. A classic of contemporary fiction,
The Twenty-Seventh City shows us an ordinary metropolis turned inside out, and the American Dream unraveling into terror and dark comedy.
About the Author
Jonathan Franzen is the author of
The Corrections,
The Twenty-Seventh City and
Strong Motion. He has been named one of the Granta 20 Best Novelists under 40 and is a frequent contributor to
The New Yorker and
Harper's.