The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen (2001)
“A Midwestern family unravels across a continent, each member fleeing the same house and arriving at the same emptiness.”
Short Summary
Alfred and Enid Lambert are aging in their St. Jude home — he declining with Parkinson's and dementia, she desperate for one last Christmas with all three adult children. Gary, a Philadelphia banker, fights depression and his wife's campaign to declare him clinically unwell. Chip, a fired academic, flees to Lithuania to help a fraudster build a website for a corrupt government. Denise, a brilliant chef, loses her restaurant job after affairs with both her employer and his wife. All three children return for Christmas, but the reunion only confirms that the family cannot be corrected. Alfred enters a nursing home. Enid begins, tentatively, to live for herself.
Detailed Summary
The Corrections follows the Lambert family of St. Jude, a fictional Midwestern city, as each member confronts private failures against the backdrop of late-1990s American excess. Alfred Lambert, a retired railroad engineer, is losing his mind to Parkinson's disease and an unspecified dementia. His w...