The Corrections is a 2001 novel written by Jonathan Franzen.
Enid Lambert, a mother and housewife for fifty years, wants to get her entire family together for one last, really nice Christmas together in their childhood home, the Midwest town of St. Jude. Together with her cold, introverted husband Alfred (who's falling deeper into Parkinson's disease), she begins a year-long-campaign to persuade her children to come visit, including Gary, a man whose paranoia and vicious denial of his crumbling mental health is only matched by his wife's passive-aggression; Denise, who approaches her relationship with two parts fatalism and one part well-meaning cluelessness; and Chip, a Casanova Wannabe whose life got turned upside down when he was fired for an affair with a 19-year-old student.
There have been various attempts to adapt this novel, either as a film or a television series (but the 2011 pilot has yet to picked up by anyone).
Contains examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: While she's on a cruise, Enid visits the ship's doctor. During a relatively brief conversation, he calls her Elaine, Edna, Elinor, Edwina, Edith, Andie, Edie and Eden.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Every single sibling has tried this with their parents, to little or no success.
- Closer to Earth: Played straight and deconstructed with both Enid and Denise. Most other women avert this entirely.
- Creator Breakdown: In-universe. Chip tries to write a screenplay to get back at Melissa and the school board for firing him. The result? See Stylistic Suck.
- Fan Disservice: See Hot for Student. And that's just the first example.
- Gayngst: Denise suffers some before becoming adjusted to her sexuality.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Brian cheating on Robin is bad, Robin cheating on Brian is good believes Denise.
- Hands-Off Parenting: Caroline believes in this, much to Gary's chagrin.
- Humiliation Conga: Chip's life after his disastrous affair with Melissa in the first half of the book is essentially this.
- Loophole Abuse: Turns out Denise was Above the Influence when it came to married men. Married women, on the other hand...
- Moral Guardian: Enid is distilled Middle America.
- The '90s
- Selective Obliviousness: To say that all of these characters are living in denial of both themselves and the people around them is a gross, gross understatement.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Gary isn't depressed, by the way.
- Talking Poo: During the cruise, Alfred has a hallucination where a talking piece of feces appears and insults him.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Chip is pursued by his nineteen-year-old student Melissa, a girl with one or two Stalker with a Crush tendencies.
- Title Drop: Gets dropped in reference to something different in each section.
- Wham Episode: Once at the end of every part, but the end of Albert and Enid's cruise, especially.
