Episode 9: How to Be Alone

Mr. Difficult

In this episode, we’re joined by novelist Brandon Taylor to discuss Jonathan Franzen’s first essay collection, How to Be Alone. Published in 2002, the book collects fourteen essays that previously appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, Details, and other publications, including arguably his two most famous and controversial: “Perchance to Dream”—retitled and revised here as “Why Bother?”—which grapples with the state of the social novel in a country increasingly indifferent to fiction and “Mr. Difficult,” an essay that purports to be about William Gaddis and “difficult fiction” but is really a kind of manifesto about Franzen’s own turn toward the accessible. These are essays that have a reputation for being solipsistic and dour and yet, they’re also moving, curious, and surprisingly funny.