The Best Books of the 21st Century: Taffy Brodesser-Akner on ‘The Corrections’

The Book Review

In this episode of The Book Review podcast, host Gilbert Cruz and guest Taffy Brodesser-Akner discuss Jonathan Franzen's seminal novel 'The

Key takeaways

The Corrections is seen as a defining work of Generation X literature, reflecting the emotional and psychological complexities of a generation shaped by economic prosperity and personal disillusionment.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner reveals she has read the novel over 20 times, describing it as a transformative experience that inspired her to become a writer.

Main topics

The cultural significance of 'The Corrections' at its 25th anniversary
Family dysfunction and emotional trauma in American life

Notable quotes

"I don't think we did know how people hurt each other in a closed loving circuit of an unbroken family."

"It needs you to know how families hurt each other."

Conclusion

As 'The Corrections' celebrates its 25th anniversary, this episode reaffirms its status as one of the most

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) I'm John Caramonica, a critic at The New York Times. And I'm Joe Cascarelli, a culture reporter at The Times. Speaker 2 (0:05) Together we host PopCast, a weekly pop culture chat show where we speak to the biggest musicians, actors, internet celebrities, and more. Speaker 4 (0:12) We've had Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo, and Anne Hathaway. We've also hosted live performances with Andre 3000 and Erykah Badu. Plus, we end every conversation with a snack. Catch new episodes of PopCast every week on YouTube. And anywhere you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (0:29) I don't think we did know how people hurt each other in a closed loving circuit of an unbroken family. And I don't know anybody who has never had this feeling where in the glowing windows of the other homes is a normal family and your family is not normal. Speaker 2 (0:49) I'm Gilbert Cruz, and this is the Book Review from The New York Times. Two years ago, The New York Times published a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, and that wasn't just us saying so. We reached out to hundreds of novelists and nonfiction writers, poets and bookstore owners, literary luminaries of every stripe, and we asked them what they thought were the best books published since the year 2000. We took all of those votes, we crunched the numbers, and we put together our list. It's a great guide to older, but not ancient, books that you should probably check out. Today, we're going to focus on the fifth book on our list of 21st century greats. It's a very high number, number five. That book is The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. The Corrections is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month. The novel, in addition to becoming a much-discussed bestseller, won the National Book Award. It was a Pulitzer finalist. It was an Oprah Book Club pick until it was not. It's also a book that came out just a week before 9-11. You could not think of a more terrible time to try to promote and sell a novel. And yet The Corrections was an instant success, perhaps because to many, it represented the end of a pre-9-11 America. When I realized this anniversary was on the way, I knew I had to bring in my friend and colleague, Taffy Bredeser-Ackner. Taffy is a features writer at the New York Times Magazine. She has reported and written heartbreaking stories and hilarious stories and some of the best celebrity profiles in existence. She is also the author of two novels herself, Fleischman is in Trouble and Long Island Compromise, the latter of which was deeply influenced by The Corrections. In fact, Taffy loves The Corrections so much. She says that she has read it more regularly than she is willing to admit, although I think she's going to admit it here. Taffy, thank you for joining us. Thank Speaker 1 (2:47) you for having me. I feel like, how could you not discuss that this book became the defining book of the climax of America's golden moment, which ended on September 10th. Speaker 1 (3:07) And it is. It is filled with the anxieties of people who had had an easy life, who came of age in a great economy, of old problems. It is the best book you could use to understand where Generation X came from. Before Speaker 2 (3:27) we talk about all the things that it represents, I think we should just talk a little bit about... who the people are in the book, what the book is about. This is a full spoiler conversation. You've had Speaker 1 (3:38) 25 years. Speaker 2 (3:40) All spoilers all the time. Taffy, let's talk briefly about what it's about. It's a book about America. It's a book about... medication. It's a book about sex. It's a book about money. It's a book about so many things, but at its heart, it is a book about a family. Tell us about this family. Speaker 1 (3:56) Okay. This book is about the Lambert family. They are from St. Jude, which feels like it must be St. Louis, Missouri. They are a sort of nuclear family of father, mother, Albert and Enid, and three children, Gary, Chip, and Denise. Speaker 1 (4:18) The story is, yes, it's about America. Yes, it's about money. Yes, it's about sex. Yes, it's about shame and insecurity and fear. It is about the things we do to correct what we feel we did in the past, what was done to us, how we live. But mostly it is a book about a woman who wants her three children to come home to St. Jude for one last Christmas. Speaker 1 (4:53) And at that point is where I crumble because to say that is almost hilarious because you open it up. It is like saying Narnia is about a closet. Like it is, it is, it is, you open it up and you climb in. When I read this book, you asked me, you texted me last night and you said, bring in anything you've underlined. And I got upset and I was like, you should have told me to underline. Because when I start this book, I do, I go into a trance. And... I would more easily describe this book as a disease I have that goes dormant and then there are flare-ups. Like your friend Gilbert calls you and says, do you want to be on this podcast about the corrections with me? Flare-up. And I say, okay. And I make my way over to the closest bookshelf that contains the corrections because I have six copies. Speaker 1 (5:55) In like every room, you could find the corrections. And during flare-ups, in the bathroom. And I start reading, and I become a different person. But you asked me what the book is about, and that's not what the book is about. So we meet Al and Enid as they are preparing to go on a Nordic Pleasure Line's fall color cruise. They're going to stop in New York, have lunch with two of their children, and then go on this cruise. And Al is in the throes of dementia as a result of his Parkinson's. And Enid cannot understand why they can't just be a normal family. Every time I read this book, and I told your producer I didn't know how many times because to tell you how many times and to tell you I still haven't read Middlemarch is... To my great 20. This was the 20th. This was the 20th time? Beginning to end. Speaker 2 (6:57) That's like once a year or once almost every year. That's not the worst thing. That's a great thing. I watch Jaws every year. That's like 90 minutes. It's closer to two hours, but I see your point. Yeah. Yeah. This book is almost 600 pages. Speaker 1 (7:14) Yeah. Speaker 2 (7:14) Yeah. And Speaker 1 (7:14) I'm not a fast reader and I'm a demoralized reader. and I have other things to read. Speaker 2 (7:21) So you've read it 20 times. Let's go back to the first time. When was the first time that you read this book 19 times ago? Speaker 1 (7:30) It was November 2001. I was at the home of my boyfriend, Paul. Paul was the last boyfriend I had before I met my husband. And I was lying around. It was a Saturday. And he was a writer, too. And he takes this book and he says, you will not believe how good this is. And he hands it to me. And I just start. And that is the first time I go into the trance. I do not leave the bed for like four days. Like the sun comes up and goes down and Speaker 1 (8:09) people walk in and out and it's on a speed up, a Speaker 2 (8:12) sped up camera. Speaker 1 (8:12) There's like a time lapse. Yeah, there's like a time lapse and I can't put this book down. Speaker 2 (8:18) And Speaker 1 (8:18) I decide that one day I want to write a novel. That's what I decide. I decide that I want to be a writer. I had recently been fired from my first magazine job. I was fired from a job at a soap opera magazine. And as a result, it was not clear that I had a bright future in the letters. In letters. Speaker 2 (8:43) Is that how you thought of it? Speaker 1 (8:44) Yes. Right before this, I had read American Pastoral. Before that, I was reading classics because I had gone to a yeshiva where I felt that we were not like, prepared to go out into the world literature-wise. So I was trying to catch up on Shakespeare, on everything. And I had just started. I was like 25, and I had just started reading, like, modern books. So I read American Pastoral, and then I read this. Speaker 1 (9:20) And I thought, wow, books are amazing. But then it wasn't true. These two books are the books that I kept coming back to. But The Corrections is the one. Speaker 2 (9:32) Yeah. Did it ruin books for you? Speaker 1 (9:34) It sort of ruined books for me. It's sort of the book I judge all the other books against. And none of them really, a lot of them are good. And sometimes I think. This is good, but what are we doing here? Speaker 2 (9:48) This Speaker 1 (9:49) was written with such urgency. It was written in a hyper-verbal fever. And I divide all the books now into, is this author just writing a novel, or does this author need me to know something? And The Corrections needs you to know something. Speaker 2 (10:08) What does it need you to know? Speaker 1 (10:10) It needs you to know how families hurt each other. Speaker 2 (10:17) Is this something we didn't know before this book was written? Speaker 1 (10:47) dementia. And he is hallucinating that a giant turd is mocking him. And Speaker 2 (10:54) by the way, I forgot Speaker 1 (10:54) about this. I don't know how this book is so good that by the time that happens, you're like, yes, like I have no questions anymore. And he has this flashback. And the flashback is about a time he went on a business trip and it leads directly into his arrival at home. And what he does at his arrival is he bumps into a neighbor, gives him some information. Al is a very moral man, quotes Schopenheimer all the time. He gives this neighbor a piece of information that he knows the neighbor is going to use to insider trade. But it's his ego that needs people to know that he knows something. He walks into the house angry at himself that he's done that because he's so moral. His wife is pregnant. The two children come home. He's resentful at the wife. The wife is resentful at him. He says, I left and the only thing I asked you to do was clear this pile of magazines. And Enid thinks, that's not all you asked me to do. You asked me to also raise the children and do the laundry and drive them to their swimming lessons and do all of this stuff without even you calling to check in on me, without even you giving me a kiss goodbye before you went on the road for 11 days. So she makes him the dinner of revenge. This is capitalized. Dinner Speaker 5 (12:23) of revenge. Speaker 1 (12:25)