According to John Leonard, the novel explores the generation gap and the grasp of one generation on another in a way that reminds you of "why you read serious fiction in the first place".[5]
The novel won the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction[1] and the 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize,[6] was nominated for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award, and was shortlisted for the 2003 International Dublin Literary Award. In 2005, The Corrections was included in TIME magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.[7] In 2006, Bret Easton Ellis declared the novel "one of the three great books of my generation."[8] In 2009, website The Millions polled 48 writers, critics, and editors, including Joshua Ferris, Sam Anderson, and Lorin Stein;[9] the panel voted The Corrections the best novel since 2000 "by a landslide".[10] The novel was a selection of Oprah's Book Club in 2001. Franzen caused some controversy when he publicly expressed his ambivalence at his novel having been chosen by the club due to its inevitable association with the "schmaltzy" books selected in the past.[11] As a result, Oprah Winfrey rescinded her invitation to him to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show.[12]Entertainment Weekly put The Corrections on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "Forget all the Oprah hoo-ha: Franzen's 2001 doorstop of a domestic drama teaches that, yes, you can go home again. But you might not want to."[13]
