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1-Page Summary of Freedom
Overall Summary
Freedom, a novel by Jonathan Franzen, tells the story of three generations of a Minnesota family. It was nominated for several awards and won one.
The book is divided into five sections. The first section, “Good Neighbors,” details the early years of Patty and Walter Berglund’s marriage. It takes place in St. Paul, Minnesota during their move to a gentrifying neighborhood where they have two children: Jessica and Joey. In his teenage years, Joey rebels against his parents by moving in with his girlfriend’s family in the same neighborhood. After Joey and Jessica have both graduated high school and gone off to college, Walter and Patty move to Washington D C.
The second section, “Mistakes Were Made,” is framed as Patty’s autobiography, which she writes at the urging of her psychotherapist. As a teenager, Patty was an accomplished basketball player who felt isolated from her family because they attended small liberal arts colleges on the East Coast and refused to follow in their footsteps by attending a large public institution in the Midwest. She also recalls being date-raped while she was still young.
While in college, Patty has a crush on her friend Richard Katz. While she’s interested in him, he turns her down because of his friendship with Walter Berglund. She eventually marries Walter and they have two children together. Over the next 20 years, she secretly harbors sexual fantasies about Richard while being happily married to Walter. She reconnects with Richard after learning that he turned her down because of his loyalty to Walter.
The third section of the book is about Richard Katz, who was briefly involved with Patty. He recorded an album called “Nameless Lake” that became a hit. Meanwhile, Walter and Joey are both working on environmental issues: Walter for the Cerulean Mountain Trust and Joey for a group against overpopulation. The trust’s funder wants to strip-mine part of Nameless Lake before creating it as a nature preserve.
To win Patty away from Walter, Richard leaves her therapy autobiography where Walter will find it. He hopes this will make him look like a better choice than Walter. Patty insists she still loves Walter and doesn’t want to leave him, but he kicks her out of their house. With nowhere else to go, she shows up at Richard’s apartment.
Meanwhile, Joey is studying at the University of Virginia and becoming more susceptible to neoconservative ideas. He gets involved in a scheme with Kenny Bartles to earn money off the Iraq War by subcontracting for LBI, which makes body armor. When he learns that they’re using defective parts for the armor, he donates his earnings from it to charity but doesn’t blow the whistle on them. He also marries Connie but doesn’t invite his parents to their wedding.
Walter and Lalitha have sex. Walter, now confident in himself, loses his job but becomes a viral activist for the Free Space campaign against overpopulation. He hosts rock concerts to raise money for the cause. At the end of section three, Lalitha is killed in a car accident.
The final section is called “Mistakes Were Made (Conclusion).” It’s a new chapter in Patty’s autobiography, addressed to Walter. They’ve been divorced for several years and haven’t spoken in six years. Despite this, Joey and Jessica are closer than ever. In the last section, “Canterbridge Estates Lake,” Walter goes to the lake house where he had previously grieved over Lalitha’s death. One day, Patty shows up at the door of the lake house and asks for forgiveness from Walter; after much debate with himself about her character and intentions, he decides to reconcile with his wife. The two eventually move back into their old home in St Paul where they live together once again as husband and wife. Finally, they convert the lake house into a bird sanctuary in honor of Lalitha who loved birds so much when she was alive that she would have wanted them there if anything happened to her.”
