THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CITY

by Jonathan Franzen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1988

From a welcome new voice: an intriguing, involving, and thoroughly intelligent tale of politics, conspiracy and American values. St. Louis, Missouri, 1984. A political battle is taking shape around newly appointed police commissioner S. Jammu, late of the Bombay police force. The nominal issue is the merger of city and county, profound gentrification the ultimate result. For Jammu--publicly a can-do populist; in fact, a Marxist and totalitarian--the realignment of the area's economy is the means to more power, and she spins an invisible web of influence and control among the city's decision-makers. Set against her is unimaginative and stolid Martin Probst, leading citizen, self-made man, builder of the Arch: Babbitt with integrity. He must be subverted for Jammu's plans to work. For Jammu's manipulated, disoriented victims, the world takes on a Pynchon-like strangeness: unnerving coincidences, an odd taste in the back of the throat. When we're with Jammu herself, the situation occasionally seems implausible, but the depictions of Probst and his family, his fellow St. Louisans (Franzen doesn't stint on minor characters), and their unraveling world carry through any weakness there. Laced with a subtle, icy, unforgiving humor, a debut novel that may make quite a splash (like Bonfire of the Vanities); with its wide scope and lush realism, it's a vivid challenge to the entrenched forces of workshop minimalism.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1988

ISBN: 0312420145

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION