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With all due respect to Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections"
is the truly heartbreaking work of staggering genius. An American epic,
this poignant, dense tome chronicles the lives of the Lambert family:
sensible, hard-working father Alfred, cruelly crippled by Parkinson's;
well-meaning and frazzled matriarch Enid, striving to scrape up some
semblance of a family; ne'er-do-well Chip, youngest child, hopping from
scandalous affair to equally scandalous job; eldest Gary, whose depression
quietly escalates in proportion to his professional and family "success";
daughter Denise, scurrying into the arms of her boss' wife and threatening
her burgeoning career as top chef.