SOURCE: Filkins, Peter. “All in the Family.” World & I 17, no. 2 (February 2002): 231-39.

In the following review of The Corrections, Filkins contends that Franzen's book, thanks in part to the Oprah Winfrey controversy, helps define the modern era.

Once in a while a novel comes along that is as much a part of the cultural moment as it is a commentary on the society from which it springs. With the ill-fated brouhaha set in motion when Oprah Winfrey decided to “uninvite” Jonathan Franzen onto her show after he expressed reservations about being selected for her book club, The Corrections became just such a novel. Even before that, it was bent on rigorously examining our times and the ways in which we think about them. One would have to go back to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, or Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, or, before that...