An initial cover version of Freedom showed an orange sky, evocative of sunrise or sunset; the “final” version has a cooling blue swath in the sky (and its lake reflection) which broadens the time-line to a more general dusk or dawn. It’s as if the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, whose air-conditioned offices are a balm for those successful enough to work there, weary of the humid “southern” light, wanted to Yankee it up and “cool it down.” The blue, visually, plays off the bird; and painterly, is the compliment of the orange. As a rule, I don’t like birds, nature, or rasterized font in perspective on covers, but I actually like this cover (I guess three wrongs make a right). The pictured lake is undoubtedly the Minnesotan lake at which the novel’s most manic drama occurs, and I’m transported there, the vector of my sad literary Updikian erection pointed at an awesome fuck scene, careful not to get any paper cuts.
