Looking back on family life as we get older we start to think about corrections we could have made to accompany the inevitable mistakes one accumulates in a lifetime. The family in this book is chock-full of them. From the overbearing, obnoxious mother, to the complete scumbag, youngest brother. The main focus of this book is on the elderly parents entering the phase of life when their health (mental and physical) are beginning to deteriorate and how it effects all three of their adult children. We then learn about their respective childhoods and adult lives that are pretty much a mess, but they each put on a facade of success and happiness for their parents. This facade, we learn, parallels what Enid and Alfred have been doing for them. It all hits the fan at their last Christmas dinner together, where else, when they can't deny the decline of their father's mental health, and must face important life decisions. This book was a long read, but I actually prefer it to Franzen's other popular book, Freedom. It really made me think about how we treat our elderly population in this society versus how it's been done in the past. I'm pretty sure it's not healthy or right, how we seem to put them away and forget about them, because we don't want to have the burden i.e. think about our own inevitable decay and death. It is terribly sad to see someone's mental health decline, and raises many important issues and debates that we need to address as a whole. This book also caused me to think about family dynamics, and all the energy and time this family put into lying to each other. If you can't be honest with your family, how can you be honest with your friends?
The Corrections @ Amazon.com
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