Set in a historical moment of moral crisis, Crossroads is the stunning foundation of a sweeping investigation of human mythologies, as the Hildebrandt family navigate the political and social crosscurrents of the past fifty years 'The Corrections was a masterpiece, but Crossroads is [Franzen's] finest novel yet' BookforumA Daily Mail Most Anticipated Book of 2021 A Guardian Most Anticipated Book of 2021 A Times Most Ancipated Book of 2021 A Glasgow Herald Most Anticipated Book of 2021 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 c