[1]I was having the best time, soaking up the sun in the backyard with Freedom [2], Jonathan Franzen’s sprawling new book. That is, until I came across a sentence that made me shiver. Patty, a leading character in the saga, hates her family, but realizes her parents’ neglect was good for something. It inadvertently helped her settle down with a fine husband, not like…..
her sisters, who are now in their early forties and living alone in New York, too eccentric and/or entitled-feeling to sustain a long-term relationship.
I closed the book, sat up straight and wondered if, here at last, was the explanation for EVERYTHING. Time for a personal inventory. Well for starters, I suffered no parental neglect. I live in California, where I’ve had long-term relationships, and entitled does seem like a fancy way of saying, too picky. I stretched out in the sun, and read on.
Image: Dryad, Chris Kuzma [1]