I started this one and I had a hard time getting into the book. It just wasn't grabbing me at the time, so I did not finish... I appreciate the consideration!

Jonathan Franzen's Crossroads transports readers to the early 1970s, introducing us to a family on the cusp of change. Patriarch Russ Hildebrandt, once a popular and commanding figure with lofty ideals, is now an associate pastor in suburban Illinois and intensely discontented with his life. He's been supplanted at his church by a new, hip youth minister; he resents being tied to his wife Marion, whom he finds repulsive; and his children despise him. Entering this whirling mass of dissatisfaction comes a beautiful, newly-widowed parishioner who seems to promise deliverance. Marion, for her part, is also unhappy; she's gained a lot of weight and knows her husband barely tolerates her presence. She's also not blind to his attentions to other women, and she longs for the attractive, forceful woman she used to be. Their oldest child, Clem, due home from college for the holidays, has developed a sense of moral certitude that leads him to make a life-altering decision he knows his father will oppose and (rightly) take personally. A self-centered high school senior, Becky seems to care only for her status as school "royalty." Fifteen-year-old Perry, easily the smartest of the lot, has a budding career as a drug dealer. And lastly, Judson, at eight, is mostly left on his own to observe his family crumbling around him. Each makes a decision on Christmas Eve that will propel them in different, unforeseen directions.

Franzen has won wide acclaim for his excellent characterization, but he has raised the bar with Crossroads. As the story unfolds, the chapters alternate points of view so that each of the Hildebrandts is fully represented (with the exception of the youngest, Judson). Readers get to know each of them in-depth, learning their most intimate fears and desires, and through seamlessly inserted flashbacks we view formative events in their pasts as well. Shifting the focus from one character to another allows readers to see how the family members perceive each other, providing more comprehensive portraits. Pivotal events are relayed from multiple perspectives, giving readers a richer understanding of what really happened and how each character is impacted.

Each Hildebrandt is delightfully multi-layered, but Russ and Marion in particular are incredibly complex creations. It's fascinating, for example, to contrast the young and idealistic Russ with the truly loathsome person he becomes. While readers might find his actions in the book's present unconscionable, because we're familiar with his past, we're nonetheless able to have sympathy for him. We recognize his need to regain his sense of self-worth while at the same time knowing that his cringe-worthy actions will only make matters worse. And following Marion's journey over the course of the book is a joy — perhaps the highlight.

With the narrative's emphasis being so heavily on characterization, the plot doesn't have much forward motion until somewhere around the midpoint. Even then, there's nothing terribly remarkable about the story; for the most part it describes a relatively normal family experiencing the trials many encounter, such as questions of marital happiness and fidelity, the realization that one's life hasn't turned out as imagined, and adolescent rebellion against convention. By that point in the book, though, we're so heavily invested in these people that we're compelled to keep turning pages to learn where their individual crises will take them.

The author, obviously a child of the '70s himself, imbues his story with cultural references specific to that era. It made me smile as I encountered mentions of something common then that has since been supplanted by technology — things like writing a letter to someone, using a paper map to navigate, or taking pictures with a clunky camera that relies on film. Allusions to current events such as the Vietnam War and Watergate further set the narrative firmly in a specific time period. Those like myself who remember the '70s will likely enjoy the trip down memory lane, while younger readers may get a kick out of this "ancient history." In addition to these references, though, Franzen brilliantly captures the cultural shifts that began in the 1960s and reached a peak in the 1970s — particularly with young people increasingly rejecting the values held by their elders.

The novel is the first entry in Franzen's A Key to All Mythologies trilogy, and it's helpful that readers are warned up-front that there's more story in the pipeline, as the conclusion is rather open-ended. There is an extended epilogue, but it doesn't resolve the plotlines as much as indicate a direction they may take down the road. While reasonably satisfying, it still left me hungry for more; hopefully the next book will be released before readers' interest in and empathy for the Hildebrandts wanes overmuch.

I thoroughly enjoyed Crossroads start to finish, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in a beautifully written, character-driven trip back in time. Its adult themes (drug use, adultery, rape and abortion, among others) make it inappropriate for younger audiences, but those topics plus an emphasis on discussions of faith make it an excellent choice for book groups.

Reading Franzen's books has always been a delight, mostly because of his fluid and vivid writing. This book is for sure my most favorite of his works!

Like his almost every other book, the characters in this too are deeply layered, flawed, and, vulnerable, which makes it much more realistic and believable. This book explores the family dynamics of a Midwestern family in early 1970s America. It delves deeper into their personal lives, their interpersonal relationships, their secrets, moral values, their mental health, social obligations, political inclinations, choices, and, gives us a view of their stand on spirituality and morality.

This suspense-filled, masterfully crafted novel is only part one of a trilogy. It has brilliantly covered every single aspect, be it social, political, or intellectual, to give a flavor of the moral crisis that the Hildebrand family went through in those times.

Even though the book is a bit chunky (600 pages) and might appear intimidating, it is very difficult to keep it down because of the delightful and captivating writing that just absorbs the reader in! Thank you so much @netgally for providing me a digital copy of this amazing masterpiece!

The best story I know about Jonathan Franzen, and I only vaguely remember where I read this (a profile in Time magazine while waiting for a haircut?), is he is so focused on his craft of writing that he has jimmied the Ethernet port out of his laptop so he won’t be tempted to surf the Internet when he should be writing. If that isn’t a sign of a commitment to one’s art, I don’t know what is. However, Franzen is famous for other reasons. Of course, everyone knows about his feud with Oprah Winfrey. His 2001 novel, The Corrections, won a National Book Award, to boot. Now, Franzen is back in Corrections territory with another long book that’s about another dysfunctional family. Crossroads, a firebrick of a novel that’s nearly 600 pages long, is the first part of a proposed trilogy that takes the characters from the early 1970s (the setting of this book) up until the present day. Called A Key to All Mythologies, this series just might be the most epic thing that Franzen has ever written or attempted. Already, as I write these words, the early reviews appear to be gushing with praise, calling Crossroads his best novel so far. Better than The Corrections? Hard to say. While Crossroads is a good read, I had particularly pleasant memories of reading The Corrections, so I’m not sure which book is better. Crossroads can be a bit of a beast to get through, and it all leads up to one massive series of cliffhangers, so perhaps this is a case where the whole series, once published, should be judged and not the individual, introductory novel.

Crossroads takes its name from the titular youth church group featured within its pages. Set in a Chicago suburb called New Prospect, whose name will become ironic as the book progresses, the story is centred on the Hildebrandt family. The father, Russ, is a pastor at a progressive church who has been kicked out of running Crossroads for a variety of reasons and is now smitten with a younger, widowed parishioner. Mother Marion is holding on to secrets of her own, secrets that she hasn’t even told her husband about. Becky, the sole daughter, is falling in love with a folk musician who is already dating someone else; she has also come into a large inheritance from her aunt that everyone wants a piece of. Clem, the eldest brother, is away at college but walks away from school and his girlfriend to enlist to serve in Vietnam. Perry, the middle brother, is essentially a teenage alcoholic and drug abuser — selling drugs to his peers, at that — who is simultaneously brilliant and gifted. And then there’s a young, nine-year-old son named Judson that we don’t get to hear from much, not in this book. Instead, the book alternates between the voices of mother and father, and the three oldest siblings, marching backward and forward through time.

If you want me to be honest, I had a love-hate affair with this book. I realize that it’s a great book and certainly is going to be worthy of some awards, and I love it for its ambitions. However, it is one loooooong read. I have discussed with a friend epic books, and our general conclusion was that most of them didn’t need to be so baggy and digressive. Easily, you could prune 300 pages from Crossroads and probably still come away with the essential story intact. Still, there’s something to be said about digressions and this novel is one you can easily get lost in. The characters are all lovable fuck-ups, if you don’t mind my language, and you’ll spend most of the read cringing at what’s going on — all leading to an exciting climax that you won’t see coming with multiple endpoints that are left unresolved. If you read Crossroads, you’re going to have to be prepared to be in it for the long haul as there is way more story waiting to be unearthed here. That’s what I liked and hated about this book in equal measure. Sometimes, the plot got so wearying and almost depressing that I had to put this novel down for a couple of days just to get some respite. However, I could read on and on this story, such as it is that it is so well written. (That said, I do think that, at times, when telling the backstory of the parents and how they met, Franzen tends to tell, not show, and he additionally rambles. A caveat or selling point? You decide.)

If there’s anything particularly amiss that wasn’t already dealt with as an authorial tic (so, basically, if you’ve decided you are anti-Franzen, nothing will change your mind here), it’s that I wasn’t quite convinced of the setting. If you were to drop the references to Vietnam and move the parents’ backstory up a few decades, Franzen could have easily set this book in the present. There’s no flavour of the era, really — none of the characters has, say, a Pet Rock. I think Crossroads could have been stronger if there was more pop culture in it, not just the odd reference to someone like Laura Nyro, who, as much as I love her, wasn’t as popular as a solo artist as she was writing songs for other people to sing. What we do get, however, is a lot of churchiness. To that end, the novel is pretty bang on and paints a portrait of Christianity that is usually at odds with itself and is hypocritical. I think Jonathan Franzen was trying here to write less of a period piece and write more about his thoughts about organized religion. To that end, he succeeded.

So, should you read Crossroads? Well, if you don’t like to be left hanging, you’ll be disappointed because all the story arcs are not finished. Life goes on, as they say. However, if you want to snuggle up under the covers on a fall evening and get lost for a while in a good, lengthy book, Crossroads might be the novel for you. I have to say that I’m interested in knowing where this story is going, and that’s a high compliment. Who knows how long we’ll have to wait until the next installment of A Key to All Mythologies? But here’s hoping that it — and its successor — is as long and absorbing as this book was. If you already can’t stand Franzen’s level of self-indulgence, you really should steer clear because this is yet another door stopper of a read. But to his fans, Franzen has delivered a showstopper of a book. Since this book is about religion and God, I’ll just say — pun intended — that Franzen is probably preaching to the converted here. If that’s a commendation that you should read this, take it. You’ll probably already know what you’re in for and that this is simply a mesmerizing tale on par with the book he’s already most famous for: The Corrections. However, you know me: I’m really waiting to hear what Oprah thinks! Bring on Book Two!