Freedom , Narrative, and Happiness

Freedom starts in its opening chapter with a look at the Berglund family from an ‘‘outsider perspective,’’ that of the neighbors in a gentrified suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota; and from there it turns to the four insider perspectives of three Berglund family members and that of Richard Katz. The main plot, titled ‘‘2004,’’ and beginning on page 189, is told from three (male) perspectives, starting with that of Richard (the best, and only, friend of Walter and love–lover of Patty), followed by Joey (son of Patty and Walter, brother of Jessica, and love–lover and later husband of Connie), and ends with the perspective of Walter (best, and only, friend of Richard, husband of Patty, and father of Joey and Jessica). These three characters are given space to voice their perspectives on the emerging events and their relational entanglements at two occasions (following this sequence in two cycles), whereas Patty’s memoir (in which she presents a sense of herself as daughter, as love–lover and later wife of Walter, as mother to Joey and Jessica, and as lover of Richard) frames the two cycles of the three male perspectives titled ‘‘2004.’’ This memoir is staged in two parts: the first (fronting ‘‘2004’’ and titled ‘‘Mistakes Were Made’’) is written at the request of her therapist around the time the family moved to Washington, DC, at the beginning of 2002, the second (following ‘‘2004’’ and titled ‘‘Mistakes Were Made [Conclusion] A Sort of Letter to Her Reader’’) takes place 6 years after the two cycles have come to completion, which brings it close to 2010 (the year Freedom was published). In the final chapter, titled ‘‘Canterbridge Estates Lake’’ (in reference to the place that used to be called Nameless Lake1), Patty’s husband, Walter, once more is given voice to offer his perspective on what results in some kind of happy ending: the salvage of the family. Thus, and in purely structural terms, apart from the neighbors’ perspective at the very beginning of Freedom, each protagonist comes to the fore at two occasions, except for Walter, who is heard and/or read as having the last word at the end of each cycle of male perspectives—and following his wife Patty’s concluding part of her autobiography, he wraps the different strands together at the very end of the novel. In my commentary, I focus on Patty’s autobiography, which bears little resemblance to the kinds of narrative interviews that my social science colleagues typically work with. In terms of its literary style, it is no different from her three male counterparts’ perspectives, in that it carries the handwriting of the author of Freedom. Nevertheless, Patty stands out as an interesting character for several reasons: She receives more