A Daily Mail Most Anticipated Book of 2021 A Guardian Most Anticipated Book of 2021 A Times Most Ancipated Book of 2021 A Glasgow Herald Most Anticipated Book of 2021 Its December 23 1971 and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless unless his wife Marion who has her own secret life beats him to it. Their eldest child Clem is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clems sister Becky long the social queen of her high-school class has sharply veered into the counterculture while their brilliant younger brother Perry whos been selling drugs to seventh-graders has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate. Jonathan Franzens novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and their keen-eyed take on the complexities of contemporary America. Now for the first time in Crossroads Franzen explores the history of a generation. With characteristic humour and complexity and with even greater warmth he conjures a world that feels no less immediate. A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a historical moment of moral crisis spanning a whole century casting light forward to our present day. Jonathan Franzens gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.
