Obama and Franzen sittin’ in a tree

When President Obama was “spotted” on Martha’s Vineyard (as if he had not planned to be seen) with Jonathan Franzen’s new novel Freedom, hearts in the republic of letters were set aflutter. The association, after all, was mutually beneficial. Obama benefitted from the prestige of “literary fiction,” while Franzen experienced the once-in-a-lifetime thrill of being brushed with the wings of power. The President does not even have to read the book for the benefits to pile up. And let’s be honest, he probably won’t wade all the way across Franzen’s 500-page novelistic expanse. Obama has admitted that he is has little time for anything more than SportsCenter.

Why Franzen’s Freedom, though? The official story is that a local book­seller “gave” the President an advance copy. What would Obama have done if handed a copy of Sh*t My Dad Says instead? Tony Blair’s memoir would have created too many unflattering comparisons. Jennifer Egan’s Visit from the Goon Squad might have been just as prestigious—and Obama would have been boosting a writer who needs and actually deserves it—but no one has heard of the book, and the President might have seemed “out of the mainstream” if he carried it to the beach so that everyone could see it.

The truth is that Freedom was a perfectly safe choice. Already the second hottest-selling book on Amazon, Franzen’s novel is neither experimental nor a minority taste. And it won’t challenge the President’s political preconceptions. It is the sort of big fat socially relevant novel that was wildly popular in the ’fifties. It belongs to the same company as The Wall or Anatomy of a Murder or Advise and Consent. It is an utterly middle­brow novel whose reputation for “seriousness” is the result of a successful marketing campaign.