The opening of this book typifies the American family. Chip Lambert, a university professor but unsuccessful screenwriter is walking into his New York City apartment with his parents Enid and Alfred, whom he’s just picked up at the airport, when his girlfriend, Julia, apologizes for being there and walks out before ending the relationship surprisingly because, Chip’s latest script is not good enough and his obsession with women’s breasts.

As he watches Julia leave by taxi, his sister, Denise, embarks from another to join him and their parents for lunch, before his parents set out for their cruise.

Realizing his mistakes in the script, he urgently wants to get it back to make his corrections. Thus Chip takes advantage of Denise’s arrival and begs Denise to entertain his parents promising to be back as soon as possible.

Chip’s university teaching career got put on hold fairly early due to some his involvement with a female student. In the past year Chip has grudgingly forfeited his nearly tenured position at an elite private college in the Northeast for sleeping with a manipulative student; he has lied continuously to his aging parents about his unemployment; and he has accumulated enough debt to his sister.

By the time we get this story, however, we know Chip and nothing is a surprise: he’s an adult adolescent and there doesn’t seem to be much that will correct that particular piece of business.

Chip’s brother Gary is a banker with a beautiful wife and three gorgeous children. He has everything he’s ever wanted -- everything he was ever taught to want -- and he should be happy. But he isn’t and his condition baffles him, feelings that he tries to dull with the liberal and secretive application of fairly expensive alcohol and thrice weekly mixed grill:

Chip and Gary’s sister Denise is one of the hottest chefs in Philadelphia. While there is little confusion in her life with regards to her career, she finds her own sexuality somewhat more perplexing.

Denise doesn’t, however, let her own ambiguity overwhelm her. Rather, she goes with the flow and, ultimately, must face some very real consequences.

Alfred, Lambert’s father reflects that having a child offers an "opportunity to learn from one’s mistakes and make corrections,” but also that the very thing that makes such correction possible, human desire also dooms it.

Franzen’s story is about family power struggles, sharply critical of capitalism and of our therapeutic culture, which offers its characters only a qualified and limited redemption and promises nothing better than madness and death at the end of life.

Franzen’s story is about truth about family and marriage. It seems that every family member is correcting behaviour based on another, whether it’s to live up to or to disavow or disinherit a trait.

Using subversive humour, Franzen captures the entire essence of family life and the differences in the different American generations.

Ends