Crossroads

A Novel

By: Jonathan Franzen

Narrated by: David Pittu

"Narrator David Pittu superbly transports the listener into the lives of the Hildebrandts, a family with many secrets." - AudioFile Magazine

This program includes a bonus conversation between the author, Jonathan Franzen, and the narrator, David Pittu.

Jonathan Franzen’s gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident than in Crossroads.

It’s December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless—unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem’s sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who’s been selling drugs to seventh graders, has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.

Jonathan Franzen’s novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and for their keen-eyed take on contemporary America. Now, in Crossroads, Franzen ventures back into the past and explores the history of two generations. With characteristic humor and complexity, and with even greater warmth, he conjures a world that resonates powerfully with our own.

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. Jonathan Franzen’s gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

©2021 Jonathan Franzen (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

The male narrator is bad at female voices

Also these characters are flawed and unlikeable and I couldn’t wait for this to be over. I gave it three stars for the vocabulary and flow of language but the actual content was unhappy and draining.

This is a return to a Midwestern Family Saga

Loved it. Liked the interior monologues and reasoning of the characters. Perry's dialogue is interesting. The scene with the rabbi and the protestant minister talking to Perry about ethics at the Hafly's party was my favorite scene.

Enthralled by the story, underwhelmed by the reader

So much happens in this family epic, the first of three parts, and I’m eager to find out more. A couple in their forties w four children are on the downhill marital slide. He’s a self-involved assistant minister, she an at-home mom w a history of mental health issues. In the 1970s saga, everyone is trying sex and drugs, even the church community where the novel is set (the town, near Chicago, is called New Prospect).

None of these characters are likable. That’s not really the point, though.

This is the sort of novel where it seems better to avoid discussing plot as everything spools out gradually and would seem melodramatic if ticked off.

The performance was painful. The reader could not do women’s voices except in a creepy, breathy manner. All of the female characters felt off because of this. Were it not such a developed character study w several engaging male characters, this would have ruined the book. I listened to the interview that included Franzen and Pittu at the end and believe Franzen threw some shade.

The narration in a nutshell:

Pittu is a great narrator except when he’s terrible, which is when he does (1) female voices, especially teenagers (Laura and Sally sound like the Gap Girls circa ‘90s SNL) and (2) Perry (why on earth did he decide a 15 year old boy would speak like Moira Rose crossed with Paul Lynde?).

Overrated

Christian teenagers in the early 1970 were dull parents more interesting. Auditor had TERRIBLE female voices, so distracting might be a better book read