After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home. Stretching from the Midwest at midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, The Corrections brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and globalized greed. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious, deeply humane, it confirms Jonathan Franzen as one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul.

Amazon Reviews:
Reviewer: Priscilla Sharpless from Phoenixville, PA United States
This is the worst book I have attempted to read in years! The characters are totally stupid and I could not identify or care about any of them. The writing style is long and laborious. I tried to like the book because of all the hype over it, but I couldn't finish it. I can't imagine how it ever made the best seller lists. I wish I had read the customer reviews before I wasted my money on it.

Puppet Show,
Reviewer: A reader from Eureka Springs, AR
Franzen's well crafted puppets take out their garbage, and his.

a non-staggering work of boredom
Reviewer: A reader from Minnetonka, MN USA
Not since Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" have I so missed what all the hype was about. Because I have enjoyed Mr. Franzen's writing thoroughly in the past I was SO looking forward to this release, that is until I read the first few chapters, and then I was SO looking forward to the end. Yet another book about a dysfunctional family so chockful of cliches it was painful to finish. The three adult children in this family (and in particular the eldest son's awful wife) make the Manson family seem nice.

Don't even compare this person with Faulkner
Reviewer: mshorse from Smalltown, MS
I don't even dare call Franzen an author. The book was the most catostrophical waste of my time, ever. I'm not a Faulkner lover, but Faulkner won a Nobel Peace Prize because his work was imaginitive and insightful in a very complex and strange way. Most who do not like him simply cannot understand the symbolism and greater concepts in the work. I've read War and Peace twice--and loved it. I'm not an idiot; I'm a quiet well read person. I know an ignornant book when I read one. Please, don't waste your time on this sorry book....I'm sorry I did.

One Star Shy
Reviewer: bluejaye (see more about me) from Dallas, TX
What if Tolstoy were writing Anna Karenina today? Would Anna be an Oprah Winfrey addict. Would she be dosing on prozac and diet pills. Would Lenin be struggling with an obsession for internet porn? Thankfully, we'll never know these answers. However, the questions seemed very relevant to me while reading 'The Corrections'. …How beautiful can a scene describing an old man arguing with his own excrement be?

Ridiculous...what an arrogant person…
Reviewer: tweber@triad.rr..com from High Point, North Carolina United States

I read this book, but felt is was intended for an intellectual to read and not the average person who frequents Oprah's books. It was a difficult read and many phrases and words were difficult to understand or apply. I did not like it at all and gave it to my public library. I am currently reading A Beautiful Mind, it's a difficult book to get through but 100% more interesting.

It Glows
Reviewer: adamted from Los Angeles, CA United States
It glows... Franzen's novel actually emits a warm glow. I am struck by this wonderful and dare I say, important work. So many themes are delicately covered(cornered) all revolving centrally around family. The novel is an act of unwinding the tight, prison-like familial constructs of the past(mistakes or not... lovely ambiguity is the key), while each member of the nuclear unit that is the Lamberts embodies their own slew of entanglements, dramas, tragic sparks of disorder and glee. These swirling themes include contradictions in academia, issues of acceptance, lust v. intellect, rash passion, passionlessness, image, materialism, American ideals v. the reality of their achievement, sexuality, morality, political consciousness v. action, the malleable fluid self, the obstinate and static self, death, the stock market, and (there are more but this is no dissertation), of course, corrections(in the economy, yes, but more specifically, the corrections we make in ourselves and in our lives... our responses and reactions to our upbringings and relationships and hopes and failures)…

The Emperor Has No Clothes
Reviewer: A reader from Great Neck, NY
Jonathan Franzen and The New York Times Magazine announced before this book was published that it was going to be the Great American Novel. Well, it's not. What it is is boring, populated with dislikeable characters who behave inconsistently with how they were decribed (in excruciatingly uninteresting detail) just pages previously. This is one of the greatest scams in publishing. We should all hire Franzen's PR person.