The students I teach frequently need to be reminded of the differences between fiction and non-fiction. They say to me, "Non-fiction is the one that’s true, that really happened, right?" And, because I so often go off on tangents, stories, and discussions of the many gray areas of language in media, politics, and other arenas that I feel I must sometimes acquiesce to their black and white thinking ("Miss! Stop it! We’re just trying to keep it straight in our heads!"), I have resorted to a simple "Yep. Non-fiction, true. Fiction, false." Usually just to get back to my original digression from a normal lesson plan. But I digress.

Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections is one of the best examples of why my students require a more detailed answer to their question about fiction verses non-fiction. His depiction of family life in the 20th and 21st centuries is so accurate it’s actually uncomfortable to read in parts. The neuroses of his cast of characters are completely, wonderfully horrible; the evolution of 1950s gender stereotyping coupled with general personal insecurities make for three poorly-equipped adult children making their stumbling way through career and relationship disasters. Add to their stories the issue so many of us have begun or are beginning to face, an aging or unwell parent, told with the mercilessly probing wit Franzen employs and you have a clear window into the modern dysfunctional American family.

At the heart of the family is Alfred. Always emotionally distant, obsessively prudish, and unfailingly routine, Alfred has begun to demonstrate symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, complete with mild tremors and marked confusion. His often disoriented perspective is becoming increasingly self-focused. The chapters detailing his inner thoughts are probably as close to "true" as a fiction author not yet experiencing the disease can create. Franzen allows his readers to empathize with Alfred’s plight while he reveals the often hilarious circumstances a mind can generate when something is out of whack. While Alfred’s hours-long conversations with a highly-spirited rogue turd seem odd, Alfred’s responses are actually logical reactions to his progressively more illogical world.

At the side of the man she has alternately battled with, accepted support from, and imagined marital bliss with, is Enid. How interesting that it is Alfred whose shifting world becomes the subject of debate and concern, for it is actually Enid who has lived in a fantasy-driven world most of her life. Enid is one of those people who never seem to let go of the world of public opinion. Every decision she or her family makes is colored by the superior accomplishments of the Meisners or the Roots or even the eyes of total strangers. Never is this more apparent than when she writes her annual Christmas notes ahead of time, detailing the wonderful visits and fun times had by all before they even occur. The family Christmas she envisions over the course of the year is less important for the present than instrumental in future bragging rights with "friends." Since Enid’s children have all moved away from home (and after a few chapters in the hands of Enid, it’s not difficult to imagine why), she is able to construct plausible half-truths to present a cleansed and superficial family portrait to their small Midwestern world. So what if young Chip writes articles like "Creative Adultery" for The Warren Street Journal, not, as she is certain he said, The Wall Street Journal? And who wouldn’t be proud of Denise, running a top-notch New York restaurant (while she sleeps with both the boss and the boss’s wife)? And Gary? Well, he’s really followed in his parent’s footsteps, creating a happy and prosperous middle class family (where he doubts his sanity, counts his weekday martinis using two hands, and fails to parent his children).

It must be lonely in Enid’s world, however, because she succumbs to the pharmaceutically enhanced world of Aslan the wonder pill on a disastrous New England cruise, which was a failure as a vacation, but excellent for anecdotal Christmas card bragging: "Al took an unexpected ‘swim’ in the Gulf of St. Lawrence but is feeling ‘ship-shape’ again!" The swim, caused by his increasing dementia-like confusion, was actually a swan dive off an upper deck of the cruise ship. The embarrassment Enid feels on the scene must be calculably offset with entertaining stories told later. Her Alsan is just a teensy bit not legal in the United States, however, causing an awkward situation when her smuggled shipment is intercepted by her son at Christmas and unceremoniously hidden in the last pocket of the advent calendar.

There’s plenty more. The book has a section for each of the three children’s lives to be fully explored, complete with furniture sex, Lithuanian for-profit web-based government takeovers, and naughty professor/student study sessions in the Chip section. Denise has her hands full with her chef’s position and sexual exploits of her own; while Gary’s paranoid alcoholic haze eerily resembles Alfred’s own deterioration. It’s difficult to understand how such a bizarre and unhappy family can make a reader laugh so hard, but Franzen is a master. The book won major points with reviewers at the time of its release, and is definitely worth the time it takes to peruse Franzen’s detail-oriented prose. This is fiction at its grimacing best. There’s a little bit of neurosis in every family’s dynamics, but The Corrections may make yours pale in humorous comparison.