RaveSpectrum CultureAs a project, this is the author at his most sprawling and ambitious. As a standalone (albeit incomplete) installment – which splays across nearly 600 pages and multiple generations – Crossroads represents [Franzen\'s] most humanistic literary achievement to date. The novel brims with vivid and flawed individuals who, at times, each try their damnedest to be good and then invariably fail, sometimes spectacularly ... In his previous works, Franzen treated characters’ foibles with acidity and, in some cases, outright scorn. By contrast, the extended (sometimes novella-length) chapters that compose Crossroads, radiate with warmth and empathy. When taken out of context, the poorly considered decisions of the novel’s five main characters (and its bevy of supporting players) often veer into the gray zones of morality. Franzen never outright excuses any single questionable deed we encounter in the book. He instead fashions a resplendent quilt of human imperfection, woven together with silvery threads of grace ... The novel methodically builds toward two magnificent set pieces that fling all these vibrant characters in varying directions, trajectories that Franzen will inevitably investigate in subsequent entries to A Key to All Mythologies. After all these thrills we’re left waiting, with finger-tapping impatience, for what’s coming next.
