We religiously went to church! My father thought it was part of being a civilized person, that structures like that were part of the glue that kept society together, and for my mother, it was a social imperative. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux via AP)Ī: Not really. 'Crossroads' is the latest novel by Jonathan Franzen. The values that still matter to me - honesty, authenticity, kindness - were at the center of that experience, though if I was headed in that direction or the fellowship gave me that push, I don’t know. I think the first time I heard the word “patriarchy” was then, 10th grade. Because it was the ‘70s, Christianity had not yet been taken away from progressives. It was a very liberal church and the fellowship was even more progressive. No, it was definitely out with the cool kids.

There were girls and activities and you got to go on retreats - on those retreats there weren’t nasty high-school-age Boy Scouts playing pranks on you. There was a youth group at church and I was obliged to try it out, and it was a lot better than Boy Scouts. My father was not happy to see me drop out of Boy Scouts. I was a Cub Scout then tried Boy Scouts in 7th grade and I hated it so much, I couldn’t bear to go. Q: You were part of a Christian youth fellowship.Ī: And it was formative.

The following interview with Jonathan Franzen, conducted on the phone from his home in Santa Cruz, California, is a shorter version of a longer conversation, edited and condensed for clarity and length:

The questions facing them in 1971 - can you live a moral life if you’re registering your goodness? What are the blind spots of a well-meaning conscience? How can you act as a good person? - ripple on. Presumably, new installments of the trilogy will trace the moral life of the Hildebrandts to today. But though it’s set in the 1970s, it captures how the social upheavals of the ‘70s didn’t continue into the ‘80s but found a wormhole to the 2020s. The father is a pastor, the mother is pulling away, the kids are drawing apart, to religion, drugs, purpose. It tells the story of the Hildebrandts of fictional New Prospect, Illinois. “Crossroads,” both familiar and a leap ahead, is Franzen first period piece. Jonathan Franzen at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Oct.

Crossroads jonathan