So, what we have here is an almost 600 page epic about a family called the Hildebrandts (the name, you might be interested to learn, is of Germanic descent – obvs – with each respective half of the word standing for ‘battle’ and ‘sword’ respectively) that takes place over Advent and Easter 1971. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t a credulity gap in Crossroads (the plotting has about it the tussle and rush of a Christmas soap opera special where various disasters, inconveniences and revelations jockey for space on a pivotal night or two), and more that it’s forgivable when the experience of reading the book is as pleasurable as this. You and I will be here a while so we may as well take pleasure in the interaction, yeah? The warmth of the book comes as a relief after his last novel, Purity, which we felt struggled to hold on to the reins of credulity at all times. This is a book you will enjoy spending time in the company of. Second, and you may have read this elsewhere too, Crossroads feels warmer than his previous novels.

Which lets you know that this is a book that has reach (if we take it as read that the trilogy will centre upon the same family rather than being one of those jinxy trilogies which are basically three separate books loosely thematically linked). Edward Casaubon dedicates several decades of his life in the George Eliot novel).

Before you get all finger snappy a la Ariane Grande and say, next, however, this one is a little different.įor one thing, as you probably already know, it’s the first part of a trilogy (subtitled – although the subtitle is nowhere in evidence in my proof copy of Crossroads – A Key to All Mythologies, in a knowing wink to Middlemarch – The Key to All Mythologies being the name of the work of theological scholarship to which the 45-year-old Rev. Jonathan Franzen’s sixth novel is, you’ll no doubt be surprised to learn, about a family – family, as we’ve said in previous Jonathan Franzen reviews, being Franzen’s big subject.

Franzen trilogy