How to Make a great Novel into a Great Novel

Allegra Goodman v. Jonathan Franzen

Even from the brief description, it appears that I would need to look into the book by Ms. Goodman.  It sounds too good to be missed.

When people have sex in Freedom, heads bang on walls. In The Cookbook Collector it's a finger on the chest and then fade out. There are great flights of imagination in The Cookbook Collector – like the scene where George stumbles upon a collection of 17th-century manuscripts in the cabinets and ovens of a musty kitchen: "For a moment, he thought she was searching for the iodine, and then he saw them. Leather-bound, cloth-bound, quartos and folios, books of every size." 

I'll spare you the rest of that paragraph.  In all, it sounds to me like Goodman wins hands down.  So why so little acclaim--read the article to find out.

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