P&P Live! Jonathan Franzen: CROSSROADS with Tony Tulathimutte

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.

Franzen is in conversation with Tony Tulathimutte, whose novel Private Citizens was called “the first great millennial novel” by New York Magazine. Tony has written for The New York Times, VICE, WIRED, N+1, Playboy, The New Yorker, and The New Republic, and has received a Whiting Award and an O. Henry Award. He currently runs CRIT, a writing class in Brooklyn.