CROSSROADS by Jonathan Franzen

The Hildebrandt family members are basically all at a crossroads, but the title also is the name of a Sunday night youth group at their church in a Chicago suburb.  Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor, and his wife, Marion, have four children, the three oldest of whom figure largely in this book, which takes place in the 1970s.  Russ is in the midst of a midlife crisis and has developed the hots for Frances Cottrell, a comely widow.  Marion, aware that her weight is contributing to Russ’s edging toward adultery, takes up chain-smoking in an effort to slim down to her previously attractive self.  Their oldest son, Clem, is in college and, thanks to a guilt trip initiated by his girlfriend, decides that he should relinquish his college deferment and let the draft board send him to Vietnam.  Becky is a popular teenager who develops a crush on an older singer-songwriter, who has a longtime frumpy girlfriend whose physical traits seem to mirror Marion’s.  Lastly, Perry is gifted intellectually but is secretly partaking of the drugs he’s dealing.  This family is weirdly paired off in terms of allegiance.  Marion indulges Perry, overlooking all of his faults, and is, of course, oblivious to his illegal activities.  Clem and Becky are best friends until Clem’s love life monopolizes their conversations.  These characters are all apparently following in the footsteps of Robert Johnson, who famously wrote and sang “Crossroads,” and according to legend, sold his soul to the devil.  In the case of the Hildebrandts, the devil doesn’t always win, and sometimes the battle with him is a draw.  Russ is left out in the cold, in more ways than one, after he is banned from any leadership role in the Crossroads youth group.  Each year the group makes a bus trip to Arizona to work in a Navajo community, but Russ finds that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  This is my fourth and favorite Franzen novel.  The characters are not particularly lovable, but they all undergo such marked transformations that I didn’t even mind the almost 600-page length of this book.  And Franzen’s writing never disappoints.