Crossroads (novel)

Crossroads follows Russ and Marion Hildebrandt, whose marriage is close to collapse, and their four children, Clem, Becky, Perry, and Judson. Each chapter is told from the perspective of one of the Hildebrandts, and most are set in the fictional New Prospect Township of suburban Chicago. Advent The first section, "Advent," takes place in the winter of 1971. Russ, an associate minister at First Reformed Church, flirts with a young widow, Frances Cottrell, and stews over his rivalry with the charismatic Rick Ambrose. Russ has been forced out of Crossroads, the popular youth group he founded at the Church, in favor of Rick's more popular – and less liturgical – style of leadership. Both Perry and Becky have recently joined Crossroads. Precocious Perry has resolved to stop dealing pot and become a better person. Becky, a popular cheerleader, mistrusts Perry and thinks of him as a cynical schemer, though she is close with her elder brother, Clem. She has also clashed with her parents over a $13,000 inheritance she received from Marion's late sister, Broadway actress Aunt Shirley. Initially she attends Crossroads at the urging of Tanner Evans – "a bell-bottomed dreamboat" and aspiring musician on whom she has a crush – but eventually has a religious awakening of her own. Clem, on the other hand, has had a sexual awakening with his college girlfriend Sharon, but he decides to end the relationship, drop out of school, and forfeit his draft deferral in order to fight in the Vietnam War out of a sense of moral obligation. Meanwhile, Marion is surreptitiously attending therapy sessions, at which she recounts traumatic episodes from her past, including an affair with a married man named Bradley Grant and a subsequent psychiatric breakdown. These episodes took place in Los Angeles shortly before she met Russ, and Marion has hidden them from her family, despite her increasing concern for Perry's mental stability. At Frances' urging, Russ tenuously reconciles with Rick. Easter The second section, "Easter," begins in the spring of 1972. Crossroads takes its annual service trip to Arizona, where Russ has connections with the Navajo community dating back to his alternative service in Arizona as a conscientious objector during World War II. Russ attends the trip as a chaperone, as does Frances, with whom he has recently smoked pot for the first time. Following a confrontation with a group of young Navajo men, who object to the all-white Church group's presence on the territory, Russ and Frances sleep together. Marion is on vacation in California, ostensibly taking Judson to Disneyland and visiting an uncle, but in fact attempting to rekindle her relationship with Bradley. However, she makes peace with her own marriage when she realizes that Bradley has become unattractive in her absence. Perry has developed a cocaine addiction and, also with Crossroads in Arizona but neglected by Russ, he ends up in hospital after overdosing, being robbed, and committing arson. That summer, Becky and Tanner take a trip around Europe, and Becky becomes pregnant, ending her aspirations to attend college. Back in New Prospect, living with Tanner and their daughter, Gracie, Becky becomes estranged from her parents. Russ and Marion have grown closer, but are thoroughly absorbed in caring for Perry, who has undergone several expensive rehab visits since his overdose in Arizona. Strapped for cash and partially alienated from New Prospect's community, they plan a move to a new pastoral posting in rural Indiana. Becky has also fallen out with Clem, who – sent away by the draft board – embarked on a lengthy journey through Central and South America, becoming a jaded day laborer. The book ends in the spring of 1974, when Clem returns to New Prospect to reunite with Becky, and, possibly, his parents. == Background ==

Franzen began writing Crossroads in early 2018, and completed it during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Franzen has said that it was during the writing of Crossroads that he first fully embraced his place as "a novelist of character and psychology," as opposed to a novelist of form or social commentary. Franzen also sees Crossroads as his first attempt to write "a family novel," where, in his view, a true family novel should span multiple generations and thus show "how patterns replicate themselves." and will center on the Hildebrandt family throughout, following their children and possibly some of their grandchildren. However, Franzen intends Crossroads and each of its two sequels to be "freestanding," and thus prefers to view the trilogy as "a trio of novels." == Reception ==

Bookforum called it Franzen's "finest novel yet," his "greatest and most perfect novel," and Dwight Garner of The New York Times said it was "warmer than anything he's yet written, wider in its human sympathies, weightier of image and intellect." According to The Times Literary Supplement:Crossroads is largely free from the vices to which Franzen's previous work has been addicted: the self-conscious topicality; the show-off sophistication; the formal heavy-handedness. It retains many of his familiar virtues: the robust characterization; the escalating comedy; the virtuosic command of narrative rhythm.Critics especially praised the character of Marion, whom Garner called "one of the glorious characters in recent American fiction." Not all reviews were unequivocally positive. A review in Vulture said that, in comparison to the better among Franzen's earlier novels, Crossroads seems "not only muddy and unstylish but determinedly and self-righteously so." Arguing that, other than Marion and Perry, the Hildebrandts are "boring" characters – and "boring in exactly the same way: stubborn, narrow, flummoxed, risk averse" – the review lamented the absence of the "weird words, arcane shit, and glorious tangents" which animate Franzen's earlier work. The Brooklyn Rail, arguing that Russ's story "read as if it's been told too often in American fiction," regretted that Franzen had not further developed the storylines involving the Navajo, a black inner-city church, and the female Hildebrandts, Marion and Becky. It was selected for The Washington Posts "10 Best Books of 2021" list. A "novel of ideas" Reviewers noted that, in Crossroads, Franzen turns further away from his earlier aspirations towards writing "systems novels." The London Review of Books wrote, "Franzen certainly did what we wanted him to do: Crossroads is a family story that's interested in people, not systems." According to the Chicago Review of Books:Maybe the most attractive aspect of Crossroads is its depth of moral, capitalist, and religious contemplation—discursions that thankfully do not present via authorial (or authoritative) monologues... Franzen has reinvigorated the contemporary novel by offering a vision for how fiction can still serve as the preeminent vehicle for exploring humanity's most consequential ideas.The New Republic said that the novel is "closer to a novel of ideas" than to a social realist novel:...though it's not quite this either. Unlike a more typical novel of ideas... there are no lectures or staged debates. Characters are more than mouthpieces, although they and their discussions of being good are relatively flat. On some level, Franzen seems to know this, as the novel's plot ultimately undercuts its philosophizing. The irony of Crossroads is that it's a novel of ideas about the inadequacy of ideas... However, others held that people of color are more convincingly rendered in Crossroads than in Franzen's earlier novels, Style The most common complaint among critics was that the novel's prose style is mediocre. Rumaan Alam, writing for The Nation, noted a dearth of "lovely sentences" in Crossroads, but said that the middling prose style is compensated for by "the charms of plot and momentum, characters and conversation." According to Vulture, the novel contained some "breathtaking" sentences but many more "inert" ones. Several reviews commented on the awkwardness of the novel's sex scenes. == References ==