Jonathan Franzen
Crossroads
Mon., Oct. 18, 2021 • 6:00pm PT • Live • Ticketed Event-$38 • Online
In conversation with Mona Simpson
Join us for a one-of-a-kind literary conversation between Jonathan Franzen and Mona Simpson to celebrate his latest novel, Crossroads—a tour de force following a Midwestern family in the '70s throughout which Franzen's gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident.
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.
Jonathan Franzen is the author of five novels, including The Corrections, Freedom, and Purity, and five works of nonfiction, most recently Farther Away and The End of the End of the Earth, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Mona Simpson is the author of six novels. Her next novel, called Help and its Sequel, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2022.
Please note: Books may be shipped or picked up in either our Corte Madera or San Francisco Ferry Building store. Shipping is not included in the ticket price.
Jonathan Franzen photo by Janet Fine