From the author of Crossroads and The Corrections ** New York Times_Bestselling Author National Book Award Winner "Jonathan Franzen, an abundantly gifted writer, has even more nerve than talent" (_The New York Times), and he refuses to play it safe in this bold, layered ecological thriller. Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of strange happenings-earthquakes strike the city, and the first one kills his grandmother. During a bitter feud over the inheritance, Louis falls in love with a young seismologist, Renée Seitchek, whose theory about the origin of the earthquakes turns his world upside down. "No doubt about it: Jonathan Franzen . . . is one of the most extraordinary writers around." -Newsweek "Strong Motion seems for a while like a brilliant chaos. Bit by bit, the chaos settles . . . the brilliant things remain, and the connections among them begin to appear." -Los Angeles Times**