The Corrections — Jonathan Franzen (2001)

The Corrections delivers the most comprehensive critique of American consumer culture in a 21st-century novel, dissecting the Lambert family's final Christmas before the patriarch's Parkinson's disease overwhelms him. At 568 pages, it is 30% longer than the average literary novel of the decade, allowing Franzen to weave themes of pharmaceutical management, financial speculation, and the collapse of collective values into a domestic story. Its publication ignited the most remarkable literary controversy of the 2000s—a highly publicized falling-out with Oprah Winfrey—which boosted sales to over 1.2 million copies. This outperforms #6 A Little Life in its characterization of family dynamics, as each Lambert is rendered with clinical precision.