Crossroads: Franzen triumphs with intricate and entertaining family portrait
Jonathan Franzen creates a world populated with vivid and intriguing characters in the first book of a trilogy covering the lives of the seemingly ordinary Hildebrandt family
Fiction
Crossroads
By Jonathan Franzen
Fourth Estate, €13.99
For his sixth novel, Jonathan Franzen returns to his obsession – the outwardly ordinary mid-western family. The Hildebrandts, a family of six, with associate pastor Russ at the helm, live in New Prospect, Illinois – a suburb of Chicago.
As with the Lamberts in the smash hit The Corrections and the Berglunds in the less well-received Freedom, if you scratch the surface of the Hildebrandt family portrait, ...