Note: Things suck shit right now, but we’re going to figure it out. You’re part of my community and I’m part of yours, and we’re going to take excellent care of each other. okay? In the meantime, here’s a half hour of escapism via nerding out over literature. xoxo d

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That chill in the air isn’t just dread of the incoming temporal season — it’s also a mass jaw-clenching event as we prepare ourselves for the holidays, AK the annual up-close reckoning with the particular foibles and dysfunctions of our family units. (or so I’m told.) In preparation for such Q4 intimacies, my friend Rachel Yang and I coincidentally both read the iconic 2001 Jonathan Franzen novel, The Corrections, around the same time this fall and knew we had to pod it out.

Rachel is a writer and audio producer at Wondery, where she makes longform podcasts. She writes an infrequent newsletter about the social history of garnishes and her forthcoming audio project about lying about her age launches this fall. She also helps produce this podcast (bc Riverside is always trying to TRICK ME); you should follow her on IG @rach__yang.

The Corrections, which won the National Book Award in 2001 and is largely hailed as peak Franzen, is a RIDE you guys. I’ve only read Crossroads before, and that was like a PG Disney movie compared to the ridiculously funny and absurdist tangle that Franzen weaves in his portrayal of Alfred and Enid Lambert and their three adult children, who all may or may not be able to come together in time for one last Christmas in their hometown, St. Jude. Talking turd hallucinations, magical drugs, and obscenely detailed backstories abound. We both obviously loved it.

Questions asked & answered include…

• What lore/campus goss does Rachel have to share about her fellow Swarthmore grad Jonathan?

• Why does The Corrections ground certain settings, like New York and Philly, with real geographic detail, but St. Jude is a made-up Midwestern city?

• Does The Corrections belong in a kind of Literary Parkinson’s Disease Canon for its portrayal of Alfred’s pov and decline?

• What do we make of the “Franzenfreude” phenom approx. one decade later, now that Franzen’s rep as Insufferable White Guy Writer has sort of faded out / been rehabilitated since he didn’t sign that Harper’s letter / we generally just care about different shit now?

• But also, is Franzen maybe allowed to be insufferable and annoying because, well, you can see the RESULTS of that obsessiveness clearly in the amazing texture of his prose?

Give it a listen, and let us know what you think about The Corrections, your favorite characters, and/or what Franzen novel we both need to read next.

ICYMI:

• Deez Links Book Club episode 1: Rusty Foster and I read “Stoner”

• Deez Links Book Club episode 2: Lucy Yu and I read “The Crane Wife”

• Deez Links Book Club episode 3: Kate Conger, Ryan Mac and I discuss “Character Limit”

• Deez Links Book Club Episode 4: Kyle Chayka and I discuss “Intermezzo”

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