Read an Excerpt From Jonathan Franzen’s Upcoming Novel Purity

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U.S. novelist and essayist Franzen looks on after being awarded with the Carlos Fuentes Literary Salon medal at the International Book Fair in Guadalajara
U.S. novelist and essayist Jonathan Franzen looks on after being awarded with the Carlos Fuentes Literary Salon medal at the International Book Fair (FIL) in Guadalajara November 25, 2012.Alejandro Acosta—Reuters
By Rishi Iyengar

Renowned American writer Jonathan Franzen’s fifth novel, eagerly awaited by his many fans, will be out later this year. Entitled Purity, the novel is centered around a young girl named Purity Tyler and spans multiple continents and several different themes including “identity, the Internet, sexual politics and love—among countless other things.”

Although readers will have to wait until the fall to get their hands on the award winning writer (whom TIME called the Great American Novelist), they can sink their teeth into an excerpt from the book called “The Republic of Bad Taste,” published in the New Yorker on Monday.

Read the excerpt in the New Yorker.

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Write to Rishi Iyengar at rishi.iyengar@timeasia.com