![]() ![]() This time that bog is shot through with intimations of light.” The character who cracks this novel fully open-she’s one of the glorious characters in recent American fiction-is Marion, Russ’s wife … The Franzen-shaped hole in our reading lives is like a bog that floods at roughly eight-year intervals. If I missed some of the acid of his earlier novels, well, this one has powerful compensations … Franzen patiently clears space for the slow rise and fall of character, for the chiming of his themes and for a freight of events-a car wreck, rape, suicide attempts, adultery, drug deals, arson-that arrive only slowly, as if revealed in sunlight creeping steadily across a lawn … Franzen threads these stories, and their tributaries, so adeptly and so calmly that at moments he can seem to be on high-altitude, nearly Updikean autopilot. Crossroads is warmer than anything he’s yet written, wider in its human sympathies, weightier of image and intellect. ![]() “ mellow, marzipan-hued ’70s-era heartbreaker. ![]()
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