Fane Logo

A Night In with Jonathan Franzen

A Night In with Jonathan Franzen

To mark the publication of Crossroads

The ‘stream and book’ package includes a unique ticket for the stream, and a copy of Crossroads worth £20, deliverable to any UK or international address. 

This event is now available to view on demand until 13th October 2021. 

If you have any questions, please email [email protected]

Join bestselling author Jonathan Franzen as he discusses his new book Crossroads, the first instalment of the panoramic trilogy A Key to All Mythologies. Set in a historical moment of moral crossroads, the novel is the stunning foundation of a sweeping investigation of human mythologies, as the Hildebrandt family navigate the political and social crosscurrents of the past fifty years.

It’s December 23, 1971, and the Hildebrandt family is at a crossroads. The patriarch, Russ, the associate pastor of a suburban Chicago church, is poised to break free of a marriage he finds joyless―unless his brilliant and unstable wife, Marion, breaks free of it first. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college afire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem’s sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has veered into the era’s counterculture, while their younger brother Perry, fed up with selling pot to support his drug habit, has firmly resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.

In conversation for this online event, Jonathan will explore the inspiration behind his trilogy and explain why he has placed the concept of family, in all the intricacy of its workings, at its centre.

View All Streaming Options