THE LAY OF THE LAND by Richard Ford (Vintage 2007)
Hailed as “Best Book of the Year” by The New York Times, this novel features New Jersey real estate agent-husband and father, Frank Bascombe, the same main character in Ford’s two previous novels who, post-prostate procedure, feels out of synch as he meets mid-life or what he calls his “Permanent Period.” Observant, masculine and often funny, Ford reveals Frank’s predicament as he anxiously anticipates a Thanksgiving dinner spent with his bi-sexual daughter and estranged and quirky son and without his second wife who has suddenly taken off with her first husband who she thought was dead. While Frank is easy to like -- he describes predicaments with folksy detail and with a wry sense of humor -- his stories are sometimes over-loaded with digression so that the overall narrative is lean on action. The final pages unravel in a violent and bizarre way with all the narrative parts coming together in an unlikely and tidy manner (8/10).
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