This is a curious family with an underlying belief in God as an excuse for their behaviour yet the older children have been allowed to neglect their religion practice. The younger son, Perry is the one who most needs help who finds solace only through drugs. His younger sister, Bec, a typical teenager, cool and beautiful, looks for guidance not from her self-absorbed parents but from hip youth leader Ambrose, Russ’s arch enemy. He seems too innocent to be true but confronts a dilemma about studying instead of fighting in the Vietnam war. Away at college he is naively drawn into his first relationship with a woman who is not his younger sister, Bec. The oldest son, Clem sees his father for what he is. And we wonder at her power to be someone she’s not for so long. Her support has elevated him in the community and within the family despite hiding a traumatic secret of who she truly is. Learning what’s behind Marion’s self-loathing and remoteness, she deserves our pity which serves to enhance the reader’s disgust towards Russ.

Frances had restored him to his courage, his edge, by believing he was capable of more.” Russ takes no responsibility for his moral dilemmas believing it is everyone else’s fault, in particular his wife, Marion.Ībout Marion, Russ says, “if she hadn’t been so supportive of his failings, he might have made peace long ago. We begin with the father Russ, an assistant minister, a weasel of a man, weak and highly unlikeable as he navigates his way out of a long marriage for the lust of a young widow, Frances who cares little for him. This novel set in the early seventies is an epic character study of the Hildebrandt family and their individual confrontation with the moral dilemma of how to be a good person.įranzen is highly skilled in dropping the reader into the point of view of each of the family member.

Review crossroads franzen