Clem is severe on the pacifist Russ: “hen it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, you don’t see any problem with me being in college and letting some Black kid fight for me in Vietnam.” And the eponymous Crossroads youth group-helmed by Russ’s archenemy Rick Ambrose, a foulmouthed young man with a gift for connecting with teenagers-has a uniquely seventies atmosphere. Father and son argue over the merits of patriotism versus passivity. This book investigates the complicated feelings of people like Russ, an activist during the civil rights movements of the sixties, now watching his children join the counterculture movement of the seventies. But mostly, I suspect Franzen wanted to put his finger on the pulse of a unique moment in American history. This behemoth of a story feels cohesive and propulsive.įranzen’s decision to set Crossroads in the seventies, rather than defaulting to the present as he usually does, may have to do with his intention of writing an intergenerational trilogy. The family members are too caught up in their own troubles to take much notice of one another, yet Franzen does an excellent job of tying together the disparate inner lives of the Hildebrandts.
Meanwhile, their eldest son Clem has come back from college to fight in Vietnam, their daughter Becky has found God (and rock ’n’ roll), and another son, Perry, is forming a drug habit their youngest, Judson, looks helplessly on as his family falls apart. While Russ pursues one of his parishioners, Frances, his wife Marion begins dissecting her own trauma in therapy.
Mainly, in his ability to write about women.Ĭrossroads follows the lives of the Hildebrandts, a family of six headed by Russ, the pastor of a run-down suburban church. To my delight and surprise, I found Crossroads-the first in a trilogy archly titled A Key to All Mythologies, in reference to George Eliot’s decrepit scholar Edward Casaubon-to be an improvement on Franzen’s earlier work. Some eagerly awaited the nearly six-hundred–page novel, others wondered what Franzen had left to say about middle American families and their struggles, while a final camp lamented how much attention this one book was getting.
After the six-year hiatus, to say Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads was highly anticipated is something of an understatement.
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