Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (Picador)Read about another entry on the list.
Enid Lambert just wants to bring her family together for one last Christmas at home before her husband’s mind is lost to Parkinson’s. But each of her adult children are dealing with their own problems—depression, infidelity, debt—that they’re trying to fix with various societally prescribed “corrections.” The novel switches between the viewpoints of all five Lamberts; it veers into reading like a systems novel at moments, painting a tragic and amusing picture of deteriorating American culture as it acts on a single family. A good reminder when calling home: we’re all dealing with our own issues.
The Corrections is on Mariana Mazzucato's list of five books to help us understand how political forces shape the financial markets, Jenny Kawecki's list of four of the worst holidays in fiction, Nigel Williams's top ten list of books about the people in suburbia, Tim Lewis's list of the ten best Christmas lunches and John Mullan's list of ten of the best episodes of drunkenness in literature.
--Marshal Zeringue
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