First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

A comic, tragic epic stretching from the Midwest of the midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, The Corrections brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental health care, and globalized greed.

After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkingon’s disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on bringing the family together for one last Christmas at home.

It’s the end of the workweek—yay! Finally, the weekend is here. I’m glad we were all able to survive another week. I hope everyone was able to, or will be able to, finish the week on a high note. I hope you accomplished all your tasks, or at least made significant progress toward them. It’s now time to dress down and let your hair down—to dive into the weekend! I hope you get to spend this brief reprieve wisely, whether by simply resting and taking a break from the rigors of a tedious career, pursuing your passions, completing household chores or other tasks you put on hold, or spending time with your family and loved ones. The weather here in the Philippine capital remains a mix of hot and damp. While the skies opened up today, it is not as stifling as the typical Manila heat. I guess the holiday breeze is drawing out the heat. Yes, nights are a little colder—it is officially hibernation season. I hope you’re all doing well—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

With the workweek coming to a close, it’s time for a fresh First Impression Friday update. Over the years, this blogging meme has become an essential part of my weekly book-blogging routine. Not only is it the perfect way to close the week, but it is also a great opportunity to take a reading breather while reflecting on my current read. These updates have also become springboards for my eventual book reviews. Currently, I’m using the remaining weeks of the year—today is the first Friday of the last month of the year—to complete the books I listed in my reading goals and challenges; this has somehow become a tradition. The remaining books in these challenges are part of American and African literature. My attention for the rest of the year is therefore on books written by writers from these regions. Among the books I listed in these reading challenges is Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections.

Like most writers whose oeuvre I have been exploring over the past decades, it was must-read lists that first introduced me to the highly heralded American writer. Franzen is a prominent presence, and his works are repeatedly recommended as must-reads. It was because of this that I acquired a copy of The Corrections nearly a decade ago. Yes, The Corrections is among my oldest unread books. I guess I have always been apprehensive about Franzen. I even read Freedom ahead of it, and admittedly, I was not as impressed as I expected. Still, I have been meaning to read The Corrections for years, hence its inclusion in my 2025 Top 25 Reading List and 2025 Beat the Backlist Challenge. The book is also one of the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I am essentially hitting three birds with one stone. It is my annual goal to read at least 20 books from the said list, although The Corrections is just the 16th book from that list I’ve read this year.

Just like the other Franzen novels I read, The Corrections charts the fortune of a dysfunctional American family living in the Midwest: the Lamberts. The patriarch, Alfred Lambert, is a retired engineer who has developed Parkinson’s and dementia. He is married to Enid, a homemaker, with whom he has three children: Gary, Chip, and Denise. In their own ways, Alfred and Enid’s children have rejected their Midwestern upbringing. With their children moving away, the couple have been spending their days in each other’s company in their family home in St. Jude, Missouri; the first section of the novel is titled St. Jude. They spent their energies mainly bickering. Weary from the growing recognition that she will spend the rest of her days looking after her husband, Enid then planned for them to go on a cruise.

The couple then flies to New York City to board their cruise. Chip picks them up from the airport. Through a flashback—the book is riddled with them—we learn that Chip is a failed academic. He was rendered unemployed after he was fired for having a sexual relationship with a student, Melissa Paquette. It was also Melissa who introduced him to a pharmaceutical drug called Mexican A, to which Chip eventually became addicted. He is living on borrowed money from his sister and working on a screenplay. However, he finds no success or motivation to pay off his debts. He is in a relationship with Julia Vrais. With no other prospects, Chip accepts a job proposal from Julia’s husband, Gitanas Misevičius, an affable but corrupt Lithuanian government official. Chip takes the offer and leaves the country for Vilnius, Lithuania, where he works to defraud American investors over the Internet. Chip’s story is charted in the book’s second section, “The Failure.”

The third part, The More He Thought about It, the Angrier He Got, transports the readers to Philadelphia, where we meet Gary and his wife Caroline. Gary is a successful but increasingly depressive and alcoholic banker. Gary and Caroline live with their three young sons. Enid was convincing Gary to bring his family to St. Jude for Christmas. In light of the patriarch’s declining health, Enid wanted the family to gather around for the holidays before Alfred’s condition further deteriorates. Caroline, however, is reluctant to go. The children also turned against their father, exacerbating their father’s depressive tendencies. Meanwhile, Gary informed his father that Axon, a company, wanted to buy the patent Alfred holds for a device he invented. Gary told his father to demand more money form the company.

I have yet to get to the part about Denise. However, the novel’s first three sections lay out the landscape of the story. Indeed, several concerns and secrets weigh down the family. Their relationships are fleeting at best. The answers, as they always do, lie in the past. Occasional flashbacks provide context. The ventures into the past take us to Enid and Alfred’s courtship and early marriage. Alfred is painted as a distant husband and father. Yet the couple managed to survive the rigors of living in the Midwest. As I am just midway through the book, I expect that more cans of worms will be opened and more secrets will be revealed as the story progresses. I am also looking forward to getting to know Enid better; earlier sections paint her mostly in the background.

There is still a lot to unpack. However, as the story unfolds, it is increasingly palpable that the novel is an evocative examination of the human condition. This is familiar Franzen territory, if I may say so myself. The beauty of life is intertwined with the tragedy of life’s imperfections. The characters themselves are imbued with both dark and bright sides. Their complexities add nuance and depth to the story. I can’t wait to learn more about the family and how they got from point A to point B. Are they beyond salvation? Or will the family gathering that Enid keeps pushing for be a form of reconciliation and redemption? As the cracks beneath the surface slowly reveal themselves, will the family gathering narrow the gaps that have developed over time? The Corrections is an exploration of family dynamics that develops into a microcosm of contemporary American society. Or at least that is how I see it.

How about you, fellow reader? What book (or books) are you reading this weekend? I hope you’re enjoying your current read. Happy weekend!