“It’s, like, where do you even begin with stuff like that? People who don’t know how to read fiction, they just shout words like ‘loathsome’ and ‘misogynist’ because they can’t deal with it. I fail to conform to the brutish, white, male stereotype and that is actually more enraging than the brutish, white, male stereotype. It’s the middle ground which is precisely what’s upsetting to people on the extremes.” Jonathan Franzen just can’t help himself.