I Quit, Franzen . . . and I Quit Franzen

Dear Jonathan Franzen,

Regarding your new big book, Purity . . . not only was I NOT fooled by your clever ruse, but I'm also NOT fooled by your attempt to be Tom Wolfe and capture the zeitgeist of our times . . . your mash-up of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden is lesser than each of them, your guilt-ridden and secretive characters are more wooden than cryptic, and your description of a Bolivian jungle is unrealistic and dull-- and this is the only setting in your globe-trotting tour-de-force that I found remotely interesting . . . and so while I'm sorry I read 300 pages of this "bloated and immensely disagreeable" story and I wish the reviewers could have been a little more succinct in how much the book sucks ass, I'll chalk it up as a lesson learned (though I should have learned after your last one) and I'll never read one of your books again . . . but on the bright side, at least I checked it out of the library, unlike my friend and colleague Kevin, who actually spent his hard-earned money on it . . . you can leave an apology for him in the comments.