The Lay of the Land

By Richard Ford

With The Sportswriter, in 1985, Richard Ford began a cycle of novels that ten years later – after Independence Day won both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award – was hailed by The Times of London as “an extraordinary epic [that] is nothing less than the story of the twentieth century itself.”

Frank Bascombe’s story resumes, in the fall of 2000, with the presidential election still hanging in the balance and Thanksgiving looming before him with all the perils of a post-nuclear family get-together. He’s now plying his trade as a realtor on the Jersey shore and contending with health, marital and familial issues that have his full attention: “all the ways that life seems like life at age fifty-five strewn around me like poppies.”

Richard Ford’s first novel in over a decade: the funniest, most engaging (and explosive) book he’s written, and a major literary event.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307363701

Richard Ford

Richard Ford (Jackson, Mississippi, 1944) es Premio Princesa de Asturias de las Letras 2016 y ha publicado las novelas Un trozo de mi corazón, La última oportunidad, Incendios, Canadáy la serie protagonizada por Frank Bascombe: El periodista deportivo, El Día de la Independencia (premios Pulitzer y PEN/Faulkner), Acción de Gracias, Francamente, Frank y Sé mía; cuatro libros de narraciones, Rock Springs, De mujeres con hombres, Pecados sin cuento y Lamento lo ocurrido, y los volúmenes memorialísticos Mi madre, Flores en las grietas y Entre ellos, editados todos en Anagrama y que le han confirmado como uno de los mejores escritores norteamericanos de su generación: «El mejor escritor en activo de este país» (Raymond Carver); «Un crítico norteamericano ha dicho que Ford se inscribía en la tradición de Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck... Se está convirtiendo tranquilamente en el mejor escritor norteamericano» (Bernard Géniès, Le Nouvel Observateur); «Richard Ford nos habla de un mundo que nos pertenece, como una canción de Tom Waits o –sirva como paradigma iconográfico– el film de Wim Wenders Paris-Texas» (J. Ernesto Ayala-Dip, El País).

Reviews for The Lay of the Land

[ccayne_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have loved all of Richard Ford's books but I found this book terribly slow going and not worth the effort.

[piefuchs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

How I do enjoying spending time with Frank Bascombe - he is funny, insightful, and he gives me a candid view into the world of the realtor. After spending the Independence Day weekend with him a decade or so ago, how could I refuse his invitation to come for Thanksgiving. Though a lot does happen to him on these weekends.In a nutshell, that's why I love (and, for the plot twists, a bit dislike) about this series. Ford's commentary on American society, on family, on love, on the mundaneness of eventful life, is spot on. His writing is exceptional. Having read his earlier book, it felt like I was visiting an old friend and his nutty family.

[gwendolyndawson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The third and final book in a trilogy--not as good as the two other Frank Bascomb novels. Too wordy and lacking a narrative arc. Describes Frank as he deals with the loss (and reunion with) his second wife, prostrate cancer, the shooting of his neighbors and various other happenings surrounding Thanksgiving 2000. Good at capturing a particular psyche at a particular point in time and wonderfully cavalier use of language.

[pcorrigan_18 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Boring, overwritten, pretentious crap laced with a steady diet of pronouncements on the evils of being a Republican.

[jldarden · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Having read the first two installments in the Frank Bascomb series, I was prepared to like this one, and I did, at first. But as it went on it seemed to slog. I understand he has had some tragedy in his life but much of this book sounded like a pity party to me. An afterword with the author mentioned Frank's optimistic voice but I found him slightly annoying in this outing

[randymetcalfe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anyone who followed Frank Bascombe through Richard Ford’s previous novels in this trilogy (The Sportswriter and Independence Day) will be forgiven for some trepidation on picking up the final instalment, which is situated during the Thanksgiving Day weekend of 2000. American holidays haven’t been good to Frank. They tend to induce introspection, disruption from the usual routine, and interactions with one’s family, all of which are somewhat risky activities. And for Frank, who is now settled in what he calls his ‘Permanent Period’, such moments of personal and national soul searching usual trigger transformation. A change is certain for the country, mired though it is in the aftermath of the disputed Bush-Gore presidential election. But what kind of change can come for someone in his Permanent Period? What’s next, other than the ‘Next Level’, and what can that be other than death itself?Frank is estranged from his first wife. His second wife, Sally, has been gone for nearly a year, having followed her former husband (who had been presumed dead) to the Scottish island of Mull. He cannot survive even a brief conversation with his son, Paul, without nearly coming to blows. His daughter, Clarissa, is pursuing her own transformations. His Tibetan colleague in Realty-Wise is itching to climb another rung on the great ladder of being. And Frank is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Anxious might be too modest a word to describe Frank’s state of mind.Once again, Richard Ford paints a masterly picture of the modern condition in this gripping conclusion to his Frank Bascombe trilogy. The prose is dense with hesitant metaphor and promiscuous symbolism as Frank asserts, contradicts, and reasserts himself, more acted upon than acting, and incapable, seemingly, of transacting the smallest bit of business without disaster—physical, emotional, spiritual—rearing up and biting him. It’s hard to imagine a character more in need of our sympathy, or less able or likely to accept it.Of course, endings are very much the theme of The Lay of the Land. One way or another, it’s the end for Frank. Eschatology breeds an intemperate clamouring for teleology. But whether Frank can piece together his life as a whole is an open question. And the end, when it comes, is always a surprise, however much we prepare ourselves. Recommended without reservation.

[naphta0853 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Bascombe trilogy stands besides Updike's Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy as unique and perhaps definitive examinations of the concept of "maleness" in contemporary America during the last half century.