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Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Oct 2021, 592 pages
Paperback:
Oct 2022, 592 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Kim Kovacs
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Jonathan Franzen's gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident than in Crossroads.
It's 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. Clem's sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who's 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 Franzen's novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and for their keen-eyed take on contemporary America. Now, in Crossroads, Franzen ventures back into the past and explores the history of two generations. With characteristic humor and complexity, and with even greater warmth, he conjures a world that resonates powerfully with our own.
A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense, its action largely unfolding on a single winter day, Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a pivotal moment of moral crisis. Jonathan Franzen's gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.
ADVENT
The sky broken by the bare oaks and elms of New Prospect was full of moist promise, a pair of frontal systems grayly colluding to deliver a white Christmas, when Russ Hildebrandt made his morning rounds among the homes of bedridden and senile parishioners in his Plymouth Fury wagon. A certain person, Mrs. Frances Cottrell, a member of the church, had volunteered to help him bring toys and canned goods to the Community of God that afternoon, and though he knew that only as her pastor did he have a right to rejoice in her act of free will, he couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present than four hours alone with her.
After Russ's humiliation, three years earlier, the church's senior minister, Dwight Haefle, had upped the associate minister's share of pastoral visitations. What exactly Dwight was doing with the time Russ saved him, besides taking more frequent vacations and working on his long-awaited volume of lyric poetry, wasn't clear to Russ. But he appreciated his ...
Each Hildebrandt is delightfully multi-layered, but Russ and Marion in particular are incredibly complex creations. Following Marion's journey over the course of the book is a joy — perhaps the highlight. 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 themes and discussions of faith make it an excellent choice for book groups...continued
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(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
One of the ethical debates presented in Jonathan Frazen's Crossroads concerns the United States' use of the draft to supplement its troops during the Vietnam War.
Conscription, commonly known as the draft in the United States, is a term of mandatory enlistment in national service, generally in a country's military. It's been employed in one form or another for millennia, with its first documented use going back to a system known as ilkum employed by the ancient Babylonians. Nearly every civilization that's had its own military force has had some sort of conscription in place for times of war.
In the United States, several attempts were made to create a conscription program, but none succeeded until 1863. As the Union Army entered the ...
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