Saturday, November 6, 2021

Book Review - Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen

Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen
Farrar, Straus & Giroux - 10/2021

Crossroads, is the story of a mid-western family from New Prospect, Illinois.  As Christmas 1971 approaches we meet The Hilderbrant family: Russ is 47 and is the associate pastor of The First Reform Church, a liberal suburban church who is at odds with the Crossroads youth group minister, the younger and more popular, Rick Ambrose.  Russ also finds himself attracted to an attractive woman who is a recent widow. Marion feels the cracks in their marriage as well and has her own secrets.  Clem is the eldest son of the Hilderbrants, he is in college but the war in Vietnam is always on his mind. Becky is popular in high school and has a crush on Tanner Evans, a boy active in the Crossroads youth movement.  Perry Hilderbrant is 15 and probably the smartest of the siblings but he is involved in drugs.  The youngest child is nine year old Judson.

As the Vietnam war is still going on each of the characters seems to struggle with religion, morality issues and/or the concept of goodness.  I can't say I loved any of the characters but, I did feel invested in each and every one enough to care about what happened to them.

Crossroads, the 1st of a planned trilogy, was everything I love in a well written novel. It's a story about family with flawed, well-explored characters who grapple with real life dilemmas.  What was really satisfying for me was the dialogue. I also loved feeling like I knew these characters better than they seemed to know each other. 

The hardcover (which I purchased) was nearly 600 pages and the audio (downloaded from the library) was nearly 25 hours. The combo read/listen worked beautifully for me and the audio narration by David Pittu was excellent as well. Highly recommended.

Rating - 5/5 stars

22 comments:

  1. Once again, you got there before me. This one is coming up in my reading queue very soon and I am looking forward to it.

    BTW, I like your blog's new look.

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    1. Thanks Dorothy, I needed a change but as you can see Blogger did not cooperate when it came to size and centering the header...sigh

      Crossroads was so good, not a book to breeze through but, I loved the writing, dialogue and characterizations. Enjoy

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  2. I remember not liking many of the characters in The Corrections but still thinking it a good read. This sounds similar. I like to read/listen to some books so will keep that in mind!

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    1. Yes, this type of book is the perfect read/listen choice especially since it is so long.

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  3. This is the first book in a trilogy and it's 600 pages long? I'm not sure I'm up for that kind of reading commitment at the moment. But I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

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    1. Yes, I'm a pretty fast reader but this is one to read slowly and enjoy all the dialogue. I hope it doesn't take too long for book 2.

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  4. Nice. Such a tumultuous time (kind of like now!) and a great time to revisit and examine the issues going on then. Many of which are eerily similar to now, I suppose. And of course family dynamics. Sounds like this was well done. Especially that dialogue.

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    1. Yes as a baby boomer, the Vietnam era was a big thing when I was in high school. But, yes many of the issues which divided people are much the same today.

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  5. So glad you loved this, too! It had everything I expect from a great read. I just hope we don't have to wait too long for the second installment... but Franzen is a notoriously slow writer.

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    1. Yes, I bet it will be a few years - Follett was a bit like that it seemed.

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  6. This sounds so good. I haven't read that many novels where the Vietnam war is central or at least at the periphery of the story so that's one of the reasons I'm interested in this one. Plus, I've still never read any of his books but that is a chunkster!

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    1. Yes, this is an excellent book but one to be started when you can devote your time just to this story - so good (I had a couple other books going around the same time.)

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  7. That's an excellent report! I'm keen to read it .... I like his novels!

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    1. I love the way he writes, the characters are so well developed.

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  8. Oooh! I like your new header!

    I've been hearing good things about Crossroads and will probably go the audio route with it. Maybe not right away, though, since it will be a long time before the 2nd installment.

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    1. The audio was excellent! That is probably not a bad idea to wait - I may have to listen again or at least refer to my notes before book 2 releases.

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  9. I like your new header!

    This book sounds really good

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    1. It really was well done, I think this family saga will be worth your time.

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  10. You've got me convinced to finally give Franzen a try. This sounds really good.

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  11. This really does sound good! The time period intrigues me, having had lived through the period.

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