Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Corrections  By  cover art

The Corrections

By: Jonathan Franzen
Narrated by: Dylan Baker
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $16.46

Buy for $16.46

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly in his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain on an affair with a married man - or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

Stretching from the Midwest at 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. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious, deeply humane, it confirms Jonathan Frazen as one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul.

©2001 Jonathan Franzen (P)2001 Simon & Schuster Inc.

Critic reviews

  • Audie Award Winner, Fiction (Abridged), 2002
  • Book Sense Book of the Year Award Finalist, Adult Fiction, 2002
  • National Book Award Winner, Best Fiction, 2001
  • An Oprah Book Club Selection

"When critics refer to 'The Great American Novel' this is it, people!" (Oprah Winfrey)
"The brightest, boldest, and most ambitious novel I've read in many years." (Pat Conroy)
"This is, simply, a masterpiece." (Amazon.com)

What listeners say about The Corrections

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    253
  • 4 Stars
    251
  • 3 Stars
    163
  • 2 Stars
    103
  • 1 Stars
    86
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    154
  • 4 Stars
    84
  • 3 Stars
    30
  • 2 Stars
    10
  • 1 Stars
    13
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    123
  • 4 Stars
    79
  • 3 Stars
    58
  • 2 Stars
    12
  • 1 Stars
    24

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Beatuiful prose, Unappealing characters

This was a sad book. Each character had an irredeemable flaw. The author seems to dwell on bathroom behaviors.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Yawn

This writer has a way with words, but he never gets anywhere with them. Too bad. I love good writers...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

ABRIDGED

Would you try another book from Jonathan Franzen and/or Dylan Baker?

I loved "Freedom," by Jonathan Franzen, so was thrilled about listening to the Corrections. It was the abridged version - something that was so not obvious as I browsed for it that I bought the book, listened to the entire book (thinking it was incredibly short), and found out at the end, during the credits, that it was abridged. The performance was good and the story was ok, but it's been my least favorite audible.com experience yet.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Shouldn't have been abridged!

I should just blame myself for not seeing the "Abridged" tag, but this is a great reading of a great book, except that much of the best stuff is left out. The book is so chopped up by the cutting it doesn't make much sense.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!