crossroads chapter sampler jonathan franzen

This year, the series talks with trailblazers in addition to Franzen, speakers include Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (Oct. Each distinguished speaker will explain how they use writing to address our most pressing challenges. TomorrowTalks place thought leaders of today in conversation with the changemakers of tomorrow: our students. Franzen is the author of five novels, including “The Corrections” (winner of the National Book Award) “Freedom,” and “Crossroads,” and five works of nonfiction, most recently “Farther Away” and “The End of the End of the Earth.” He lives in Santa Cruz, California. Jonathan Franzen’s novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and for their keen-eyed take on contemporary America. ''Crossroads' is warmer than anything yet written, wider in its human sympathies, weightier of image and intellect.' About Jonathan Franzen 'A mellow, marzipan-hued ’70s-era heartbreaker,' said The New York Times. Franzen’s gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident. 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. Despite political polarization, Franzen says, “it’s a much better time to be an American writer than I would have guessed twenty-five years ago.In “ Crossroads ,” Jonathan Franzen explores the history of two generations. It’s not about formal experimentation, and it’s certainly not about changing the world through my social commentary.” Franzen also discusses the complex ethics behind writing a character of another race, and takes issue with the belief of some in the academy (and much of the political right) that leftist sensibilities are stifling free expression he declined to sign the a “ Harper’s Letter” last year. “It’s really only in the course of writing ‘Crossroads’ that I have said to myself, What I am is a novelist of character and psychology. . . . In the course of his career, Franzen has evolved away from an early postmodernist sensibility that highlighted “bravura” writing, and “with this book I threw away all the po-mo hijinks and the grand plot elements,” he tells David Remnick.

Jonathan Franzen’s sixth novel, “ Crossroads,” is set in 1971, and the title is firmly on the nose: the Hildebrandt family is at a crossroads itself, just as the America of that moment seems poised to come apart.

Crossroads chapter sampler jonathan franzen