Didn't realize I'd already started Freedom (in the New Yorker)

Started Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom," and of course soon realize that I'd already started it unbeknownst to me as the 2nd chapter appeared pretty much as is (I think) in the New Yorker - remember the story of the young woman who's a great athlete but her parents don't give a damn because they are so horribly self-centered and focused on their liberal-progressive causes and identities, and they don't even notice let alone help her when she is date-raped - especially tricky because her assailant's father is a prominent guy in town? That was a great story - and very Franzen - a great exploration of characters, most specifically of a "nice," accomplished character who's living amidst a world of horrible egocentric people. I found it a little hard to buy some of the premise - would have been more credible if she were merely a good athlete and not a superb one, as virtually all egomaniacal parents would realize the potential status value in a star athlete daughter. Freedom takes up with the life of this woman as an adult, wife, mom - an urban pioneer in St. Paul of all places, and she's universally considered "nice," maybe too nice - again a typical Franzen, she's athletic, healthy, wealthy (family $), privileged, and for that very reason vulnerable - the story evidently will be in part about her tragic fall. The very first sentence tells us so. Something brought this stay-at-home mom and devoted dad to ruin in a Washington, D.C., scandal, and I guess we'll follow the course of their demise. First chapter a tour de force, as Franzen establishes not just a character but her entire neighborhood, environs, culture - in this regard, he's really in the league of the "Johns" (Cheever, Updike), though in this case of a more urban variety, also reminded me a little of The Virgin Suicides. Glad I got an early (library) copy of Freedom.