Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
We are in New Prospect, a fictional suburb of Chicago.
A midwestern family is in crisis.
This could only be a Jonathan Franzen novel.
Hes a nurser of grudges, a misreader of signals, a dullard, a clown.
His mode of communication, both vocationally and recreationally, is the sermon.
Nearly everyone dislikes him, including me.
Russs nemesis is Rick Ambrose, the churchs director of youth programming.
Rick is young, cool, and mustachioed.
He once owned a motorcycle.
As one of the youths puts it, Russ is a fucking dork.
Half ofCrossroadstakes place on a single pre-Christmas winter day, the rest in that days aftermath.
The story is delivered through what Franzen has called interlocking novellas.
The best of these come from the perspective of Russs wife, Marion, and their son Perry.
(Anyone waiting to see the shrink could plausibly be waiting to get a cavity filled.)
Perry is a sophomore in high school, shifty and stormy and clever.
He is an indiscriminate gulper of drugs, a dealer of weed, a menace to his siblings.
(The answer is: both.)
A perfect line, better than anything a screenwriter could dream up.
The real problem is Russ, who is a chalk outline where a character should be.
His suffering is shallow, and his grievances are petty.
So why isnt he catastrophically angry, sad, vengeful?
Why does Russ drift along in a mood of lightly fluctuating resentment and unease with occasional flares of frustration?
Why does his suffering have few consequences?
Why is he so boring?
He is boring even on topics that wouldnt seem to abide boringness, like adulterous desire.
When Russs mind turns to the hot parishioner: He felt a melting warmth in his loins.
When the parishioner hugs him: Her warmth entered his body and funneled straight into his loins.
When she compliments him: She could hardly have said anything more warming to his heart and loins.
Thats the thing about other cultures, Russ muses after the argument.
An outsider can never really understand whats going on.
Where are their minds?
With the exception of Marion and Perry the designated lunatics it is an impalpable family.
Those other two children: I havent even named them yet.
One of them is in high school, and the other is in college.
One of them is popular, and the other is not.
They are both nice.
They say things likeOkayandWowandWhoaandNopeandYepandGoshandYeah.
You know who else has complicated feelings about Jonathan Franzen?
Contract books, Franzen writes, are the kinds of books his mother would have liked.
I dont co-sign Franzens Contract vs. As an experiment, it should be successful.
Look, even a so-so Jonathan Franzen novel is better than most novels.
There are breathtaking sentences in this one!
Several dozen of them!
And if you dont?
Hey, you tried.
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
