The Corrections

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**Title** **The Corrections**
Author	Jonathan Franzen
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Farrar Straus Giroux
Released	September 2001
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	576 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-374-12998-3

The Corrections is a novel of social criticism by American author Jonathan Franzen. It won the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction. This book was also included in All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels. The book revolves around the troubles of the Lambert family (an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children) and their attempts to get together for one last Christmas.

A film adaptation of the novel has been in the works since 2002, with Robert Zemeckis attached as director.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Alfred Lambert, the patriarch, suffers from Parkinson's disease and dementia. Enid, his long-suffering wife, suffers from Alfred, both vocally and perhaps unfairly. Gary, the eldest Lambert son, is attempting to cope with depression and the machinations involved in maintaining a happy family in the face of a manipulative, selfish wife. Chip, the middle child, is a university lecturer in cultural studies whose affair with a student lands him in a world of self-loathing and financial difficulty, and, eventually, Lithuania. Denise, the youngest of the family, is successful in her career as a chef, but unsuccessful in fulfilling her mother's requests of finding a nice young Midwestern man to marry, not least as she begins to question her sexuality. "The Corrections" of the title references life itself; life is a series of corrections everyone makes for themselves to make their life better, but invariably never actually reach that corrected, perfect life.

Alongside the family dramas, the novel has an undercurrent of social commentary, taking in the topics of globalization, academic fads, the spread of technology, and the changes in family values over the years, among other topics.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Awards and nominations

The book was a selection of Oprah's Book Club in 2001 (ISBN 0-374-10012-8); Franzen caused some controversy when he publicly lamented the fact that, once selected, the club's insignia was printed on the cover of his book. He also expressed ambivalence at having been chosen for the club. As a result he was disinvited from Oprah's show, though the book club still discussed the book without him.