The Corrections is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium. The novel was awarded the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002.

The novel received widespread critical acclaim and was listed as one of the greatest novels of the 21st century by publications such as Time magazine and The New York Times.

The Corrections revolves around the dysfunctional Lambert family and their efforts to reconcile as they face personal crises and deep-rooted emotional struggles. The novel alternates between the perspectives of different family members throughout the late twentieth century, illuminating their individual lives and histories.

Alfred Lambert, the patriarch, is a retired railroad engineer who has Parkinson’s disease and dementia. His declining health becomes the catalyst for the family’s reunion. His wife, Enid, is obsessed with having one final "family Christmas" before Alfred’s condition worsens. Enid’s fixation on keeping up appearances and maintaining control over the family’s affairs often leads to tension with her children.

The middle child, Chip, is an unemployed academic living in New York City following his firing due to a sexual relationship with a student. Living on borrowed money from his sister, Denise, Chip works obsessively on a screenplay, but finds no success or motivation to pay off his debts. Eventually, Chip takes a job from his girlfriend's estranged husband Gitanas, an affable but corrupt Lithuanian government official, later moving to Vilnius and working to defraud American investors over the Internet.

The elder son and oldest child, Gary, is a successful but increasingly depressive and alcoholic banker living in Philadelphia with his wife, Caroline, and their three young sons. When Enid attempts to persuade Gary to bring his family to St. Jude for Christmas, Caroline is reluctant, and turns Gary's sons against him and Enid, worsening his depressive tendencies. In return, Gary attempts to force his parents to move to Philadelphia so that Alfred may undergo an experimental neurological treatment that he and Denise learn about.

Also living in Philadelphia, their youngest child Denise finds growing success as an executive chef despite Enid's disapproval, and is commissioned to open a new restaurant. Simultaneously impulsive and a workaholic, Denise begins affairs with both her boss and his wife, and though the restaurant is successful, she is fired when the affairs are uncovered. Flashbacks to her childhood show her responding to her repressed upbringing by beginning an affair with one of her father's subordinates, a married railroad signals worker.

As Alfred's condition worsens, Enid attempts to manipulate all of her children into going to St. Jude for Christmas, with increasing desperation. Initially only Gary (without his wife or children) and Denise are present, while Chip is delayed by a violent political conflict in Lithuania, eventually arriving late after being attacked and robbed of all his savings. Denise inadvertently discovers that her father had known of her teenaged affair with his subordinate, and had kept his knowledge a secret to protect her privacy, at great personal cost. After a disastrous Christmas morning together, the three children are dismayed by their father's condition, and Alfred is finally moved into a nursing home.