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The Lay of the Land
Richard Ford
#UB1792
Hardcover, 485 pages; 2006
$12.98
If you remember Frank Bascombe from Richard Ford's two previous novels (The Sports Writer and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day), you'll be dying to know what happens next to this intriguing, difficult, oddly familiar man of our times. (If you haven't read the others, you can enjoy this third novel all on its own.) The Lay of the Land takes place over just a few days, ending on Thanksgiving 2000. Frank is obsessed with the fuzzy results of the Presidential election. Ford chronicles just about every little thing Frank (former sports writer, now a real estate salesman) does or thinks as he interacts with bizarre characters (his partner, his neighbors, his clients, and his son) and extraordinary circumstances (his wife's return to her former husband, who was thought to be dead; his own prostate cancer treatments). The Lay of the Land is an absorbing, even dominating novel. Once you're in its grips, you're there until Ford--and Frank--let you go!
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