The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen’s novel centers on the Lamberts, an aging Midwestern couple and their three adult children scattered across the country and their own troubles. As the mother tries to bring everyone home for one last Christmas and the father slides into dementia, the family’s ambitions, resentments, and self-deceptions come into focus. Sprawling and satirical, it is a sharp portrait of an American family at the turn of the millennium.