Let's just get a peek into the seemingly perfect world of Berglunds. After getting an introduction about the family, when the son starts having an affair with the older girl next door, the family starts to fall apart. Patty starts writing her autobiography on the advice of her therapist, since she has become depressed after her son left home.

The Complicated Childhood of Patty

We are able to visit Patty's past (through her autobiography) where she spent her complicated childhood. She was a basketball star during her college days, and she was friends both with Walter and Richard Katz. The latter was an acerbic person who had a wild side to his personality and Patty fell violently for him. Walter, on the other hand, was calm and kind. The memoir ends at the point when Patty finds Walter has betrayed her and she decides to follow him at the place of his job.

The Point Of View Changes Suddenly

Now is the time when the third person perspectives start to rotate and the readers get to read the stories from the perspectives of Richard, Joey, and Walter. The narratives are overlapping which cover most of the novel. Jonathan Franzen knows perfectly well how to tease the readers as whenever something delicious or terrible is about to happen in the life of one of the characters, the point of view changes suddenly, and you are sucked further into the narrative.

A Story Told From Different Points Of View

You feel pleasantly surprised when you read the same interesting scene from many points of view, thus gaining fresh insights into the novel. In the matters of sex scenes, the writer gets endearingly dirty, and his sense of humour definitely remains matchless. The way he dissects other people's personalities makes you think he could very well make short work of you too, though most of his shocking (but entertaining) observations seem to be reserved about the women, irrespective of their age.