Jonathan Franzen Thinks People Can Change

The latest in pop-culture news, recaps, and reviews, plus close reads, profiles, interviews, and more from Vulture.com. [Brand Logo]( a long talk [Jonathan Franzen Thinks People Can Change]( Even if, as his new book suggests, it’s nearly impossible to make it stick. Photo: Damien Maloney for New York Magazine In the first pages of Jonathan Franzen’s new novel Crossroads, he introduces us to Russ Hildebrandt, a man who soon after berates himself as a “fatuous, obsolete, repellent clown.” Three years earlier, Russ, an associate minister from a strong Mennonite background, was expelled from his church youth group — for his uncoolness, he claims. Now, two days before Christmas 1971, he is nursing his wounded pride by lusting after a parishioner, a sexy widow named Frances. Over the next several hundred pages, naïve and self-deceiving Russ remains insensible to the desires of his wife Marion, who makes plans to reunite with her old flame and rediscover her old, uninhibited self. Both parents, in turn, are oblivious to their four children, as the eldest three begin to fall into disrepair in various historically appropriate ways. [Read The Story »]( The Latest TV Recaps • [The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies:]( Feel the Bern-a • [The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills:]( Sutton’s Gotta Give • [Survivor:]( All About Evvie • [American Horror Story: Double Feature:]( There’s Been an Incursion [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Stories We Think You’ll Like [The Many Saints of Network Can’t Bring Back The Sopranos The Sopranos prequel is interesting to consider as a companion piece to the series, less so as a movie in its own right.]( [What I Learned About R. 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That Said … In Crossroads, too many boring characters are boring in the same way.]( [The Circle Might Have a Catfish Problem What was initially a perfectly legitimate tactic within the larger game has become one of the latest season’s biggest bummers.]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Devour pop culture with us: [Subscribe to Vulture now for unlimited access.]( Behind the Story What it was like to report on R. Kelly’s trial. On Monday, [R. Kelly was convicted in federal court]( of one racketeering count and eight Mann Act counts. Veteran court reporter [Victoria Bekiempis]( attended the trial daily for Vulture. Here, she talks to Vulture’s Emily Heller, who edited much of her reporting, about the experience. Emily Heller: I mean, first of all, I just wanted to check in, see how you’re doing. That was a long, hard process. Victoria Bekiempis: I’m okay. Thank you. And how are you? I mean, how are you doing? You had to edit that stuff and it’s not fun. It’s not fun! I’m okay. It helps that it feels like we have a responsibility to the victims to get that stuff out. That’s actually kind of my first question for you: In a trial like this, that is so sensitive and harrowing and hard to listen to, how do you balance telling these people’s stories with being salacious or feeling like you’re potentially re-triggering people? So, it’s a mix of things. One important thing that you and Dee [Lockett, music editor] did on several of the stories was put a trigger warning at the top, which I think is very good for making sure that readers are protected. When it comes to the reporting and writing process itself, when you’re reporting on what are sometimes just inherently salacious things, it’s just making sure they’re presented in a way that’s not like, “Look at this horrific thing.” It’s about, you know, putting it in context so that it makes sense within the broader narrative of describing abuse. For example, there was testimony in the trial in which one of the victims described an element of her punishment involving excrement. One could describe that in a way that would focus completely on that element, but it’s better presented in the more complete narrative of abuse. Not just, “Look at this weird thing.” I think that’s how one can present these harrowing and shocking details in a way that does right by accusers and victims, and also does a service to readers who expect us to present a story truthfully and accurately in a way that’s readable, and that doesn’t hold back. Vulture, I feel, has always respected readers in the sense that we don’t want to hold back on some of these things, but we also don’t want to trigger or traumatize them. Can you walk us through a typical day covering this trial? The judge wouldn’t allow a single member of the press into the courtroom throughout the duration of the trial. That was very strange, and I would say unconstitutional. So we were relegated to this viewing room where the proceedings were played on, I believe, 52-inch television screens. With the exception of R Kelly, whose profile was maybe eight inches tall, in the rest of the actual courtroom everyone was like the size of quarters at best. We could barely see the witnesses and we couldn’t see the jury, which I thought was also a really big problem, because you want to be able to see how jurors are reacting to this harrowing testimony. They presented visual evidence on the top right corner of the screen, but it was so small that something like a medical record we couldn’t see at all. It was very much a challenge to present the visuals as to what was happening. What was the mood like in those rooms? At first one of two viewing rooms was just for media, which was good because we could ask each other questions like, “Hey, did you hear that? I got part of this quote — was it an ‘and’ or a ‘but’?” It was always a very collegial atmosphere. It’s also good to have people around who are also trying to listen and be objective and present the facts. It was really hard for anyone to listen to some of those proceedings, so it was really good having that sense of community. But what got really interesting is, because of disputes between some of the supporters who came to view the trial, some of them couldn’t be in the same room with each other. So later in the trial, some of the supporters were put into the viewing room that had originally been just media. That was kind of an interesting dynamic. How common is it to have supporters show up for a high-profile trial like this? What was that like? I’ve never covered a celebrity case where someone is accused of a lot of wrongdoing where there’s just an onslaught of supporters. I think that there might’ve been one or two people who personally knew Harvey Weinstein who came some days, butI’ve never seen so many supporters who don’t personally know a person show up every day. There was a core group. The numbers would kind of shift every now and then, but I would say like maybe six to eight core people every day. Some were very nice and willing to have a conversation, but didn’t want to be interviewed or appear on camera. Usually in those cases they would ask me what I think of the case, but as a journalist you can’t really opine on those things. Some were not so nice. For example, there was this one supporter who followed a colleague of mine through the park as she left the courthouse with a loudspeaker calling her a liar. I believe it was because he didn’t like that she had tweeted about him getting arrested. Other people would kind of come up in your face if you were trying to take video of the general scene outside the courthouse. The jury deliberated for just nine hours. Was that surprising to you? It’s so hard to predict what juries will do. Racketeering is a complicated charge in the sense that it’s all these little acts that have to occur in order to make a racketeering charge. It’s not just that you’re charged with racketeering. You’re charged with racketeering for these specific reasons. So that is just an inherently confusing thing. And it was weeks of testimony and evidence. Some of us were like, “Okay, there’s a lot of evidence, it could take the jury a while to just sift through everything.” And then others were like, “But the prosecution really made the case seem very tight in their summations. Maybe it won’t take them a while.” You never have any idea. On Friday, shortly after they started deliberating, the jury asked for… I believe it was the complete transcript of [Sonja’s testimony](. She was the radio intern from Salt Lake City who went out to interview R. Kelly in Chicago and was locked in a room for three days and sexually assaulted. We were wondering how much they were going to weigh that — is there some specific thing they’re looking into or are they trying to consider the entirety? And so then the question is, “Well, are they going to ask to read the transcripts from everyone or just a couple of people?” Ultimately it did wrap up pretty quickly and I was surprised by how fast it moved. [Read Victoria’s coverage of the trial]( If you enjoyed reading Vulture’s daily newsletter, forward it to a friend. Or dive deeper into the Vulture universe with our other newsletters: • [1.5x Speed](: Podcast recommendations and listening notes from Nick Quah, sent every Wednesday. • [Buffering](: Joe Adalian reports on the streaming industry, sent every Thursday. • [The Housewives Institute Bulletin](: For dedicated students of the Reality TV Arts and Sciences, sent every other Friday. 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