Plot of Bestseller Turns on Metalcasting Expertise


Art Based on Reality


In Jonathan Franzen’s award-winning, bestselling 2001 novel T e


Corrections, a patent held by a former foundry manager is a critical plot tool. Alfred Lambert is an engineer and tinkerer whose career begins in a fi ctional metalcasting facility. After moving on to work for a prominent railroad company, Lambert invents a “ferroacetate gel” in his basement workshop. T e material turns out to be the necessary ingredient for a


pharmaceutical company’s latest anti-depression drug. Lambert himself is a depression suff erer who could be helped by the drug. But there’s no evidence his malaise was caused by working in a foundry.


64 | MODERN CASTING October 2011


SHAKEOUT


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