Crossroads

Crossroads, published in October 2021, is Jonathan Franzen’s sixth novel. Like Franzen’s most famous novel, The Corrections, published in 2001 and recipient of the National Book Award, Crossroads is a family drama. It tells the story of the Hildebrandts, a middle-class family in 1970s New Prospect, a fictional suburb of Chicago. Russ, the father, is an associate minister at First Reformed Presbyterian Church, while Marion is a stay-at-home mother to siblings Clem, Becky, Perry, and Judson.

This study guide addresses topics that include drug use, sexual assault, and suicide.

Plot Summary

Crossroads is structured in two parts: “Advent” and “Easter.” Each part contains sections that shift between the points of view of five of the six members of the Hildebrandt family: father Russ, mother Marion, and siblings Clem, Becky, and Perry. Only the youngest sibling, Judson, is not represented as a point-of-view character. In the opening of Part 1, “Advent,” Russ, an associate pastor at a Presbyterian church in the Hildebrandts’ Chicago suburb, contemplates an affair with his one of his parishioners, Frances Cottrell. Throughout Part 1, Russ increases the frequency of his interactions with Frances, trying to inch ever closer to a romantic and sexual relationship.