Canada

By Richard Ford

"First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed.Then the murders, which happened later."

So begins Canada, the unforgettable story of Dell Parsons,a young man forced by catastrophic circumstances to reconcile himself to a world rendered unrecognizable. Spirited across the Montana border into Saskatchewan and taken in by Arthur Remlinger, an enigmatic man whose own past exists on the other side of the border, Dell struggles to understand what his future can be even as he comes to understand the violence simmering below the surface in his new life.

In this brilliant novel, set largely in Saskatchewan, Richard Ford has created a masterwork. Haunting and spectacular in vision, Canada is a novel rich with emotional clarity and lyrical precision, and an acute sense of the grandeur of living. It is a classic-in-the-making from one of our time’s greatest writers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781443411141

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 Canada

[pamv-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I had high hopes for this one, however, it just never delivered.

We find out in the first couple of paragraphs what happens in the book, but, the anticipation is 'supposed' to come with the telling of the back story. There was no anticipation and the back story is just plain boring.

If you are looking for something to make you drowsy while suffering from insomnia, this is the book for you.

[berthirsch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am ambivalent about this book. On the one hand I have enjoyed Richard Ford in the past and found the book easy to read. This was a quick read, the story moved a long briskly and the characters were complicated in a good way.The story revolves around a teenaged boy whose parents uncharacteristically decide to rob a bank. Caught, they leave him and his sister with no direction nor guidance. the sister, a more independent soul, runs away while the boy is taken to Canada by his mom's friend to hide out with her brother who, also, has a hidden secret.While engaging, once I finished the book, I was left feeling unsatisfied as if it could have been much better.

[dec31-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Couldn't finish. Very long winded without a lot of story. Took chapters of talking about a bank robbery that parents would do. I didn't last to the actual robbery.

[bpeters65 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I Really enjoyed this one. I thought the pace was a bit slow in the middle, but perhaps necessary. The chapters were short during the tumultuous early years when his parents become criminals, than longer during his time in the prairies of Canada, when time really slows down for the young protagonist son. Really gave me a sense of time and space. It was my first book by Richard Ford and I am looking forward to another one. Really loved his writing. I so wanted to give this 5 stars, but not this time.

[melorak-374565 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Now I'm going on to read other Richard Ford novels. I am reminded in reading this one of Dostoyevsky and Hemingway, not to mention John Updike. Loved it.

[b.masonjudy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Richard Ford has written a book that keeps the reader engaged through strong, terse prose and rich descriptions, but is also quite dull on a whole. The narrator is slightly insipid and the scope of the narrative (he's writing about it fifty years in the future) leaves lots of room for quick glimpses of tension to come and some ruminating on the circumstances the narrator faced when he was fifteen and couldn't comprehend anyway. Canada also has the most boring incest scene I've ever read. I wouldn't recommend it but I did enjoy some of the flourishes apart from the narrow yet quite discursive narrative.

[theampersand · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think a lot of readers might complain that Richard Ford's "Canada" is, well, a lot like a lot of other novels. It's a coming of age tale set in the big, wide-open American West and, later, the location indicated by the title. We get lots of descriptions of the flat, empty plains and the big big blue sky and, though a series of events, both ordinary and extraordinary, our narrator, Dell Parsons grows from boyhood to manhood. As might be expected of a novel set in a time-frame that is still fairly accessible to us (the late fifites) and in rather unexciting small Western towns, Ford's focus (ha ha!) is on the small stuff. His eye is drawn to detail, and his narrator, who admits that he's cursed with a good memory, recalls half-buried mental strategems and fleeting assumptions from most of a lifetime ago. This book isn't without it's share of action, but few readers would call it exciting. There's another side to the text, though, that's a bit more adventurous. Dell's the product of a friendly, open Alabama military man and the introverted daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants. Dell doesn't have too many thoughts about his Jewish heritage, but still muses on assimilation: how do you become part of a place? How do you become a person like other people? How does this relate to the process of maturation and of becoming an adult? In fact, the assimilation that goes on here concerns Dell's journey from the American Great Plains to the Canadian West -- which, for some writers, and, perhaps even for some residents of those places -- would seem hardly worth mentioning. But, then again, Ford's drawn to the small stuff, and he's able to use these seemingly small geographical shifts as a jumping-off points for a larger discourse about what belonging and separateness might mean. I was also impressed by Ford's evocation of childhood. Ford shows that Dell's experience as a boy of fifteen who lives in Great Falls, Montana but has failed to integrate with the town's residents in any significant way is exceptionally limited, and the events that destabilize his expected progression constitute a sort of exploring of a larger world. But Ford's also a perceptive enough writer to know that people Dell's age can be immature and mature at the same time, simultaneously wary and trusting. There's no definitive before-and-after for Dell: his development isn't always evenly paced, and the most shocking events in the novel aren't necessarily the ones that change him most. Ford seems to understand how tricky growing up can be and how amorphous young people can be at that age, too. I didn't love this one, but it's the sort of novel that I'd recommend to teachers and to those who spend their working lives among young people who are still in the process of sorting themselves out. I expect that most actual fifteen year-olds won''t have the patience for it, though.

[lesleynicol · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book takes us into the mind of a fifteen year old boy and his time spent in the wastelands of Canada after his parents have been sent to gaol for a bank robbery and he is left to be cared for by a friend of his mothers. He is sent to Canada to escape child welfare authorities. It is the story of his survival and his observations of the strange people he comes in contact with. I enjoyed it very much as it is told from the viewpoint of the grown up Del, at the age of 66 when he has just retired after a successful career as a schoolteacher. My only complaint is that I would have liked to know more of his life after he "got away" to the city and received an education, married and had a family, as I think it would have been difficult for him to adjust.

[delphica · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

You know, there were a lot of things I enjoyed about this book, but it was essentially a really long string of character sketches and location descriptions so by about page 375, I was thinking "man, this is the LONGEST short story I have ever read." A teenage boy flees, in a moderate sense, to Canada after his parents commit a crime (this is brought up in the first paragraph) and he and his twin sister fear they will be put into the foster care system. That makes it sound a lot more deliberate than it was, a big theme in this book is about being a passive participant in the major events that shape one's life. Some of my three star-ness for this book is related to my personal taste -- it's a book, essentially, about being an observer, and while I wasn't bored, it did feel like I was waiting for a payout that never happened, and I'm pretty sure that was the point.I liked a lot of things about his writing, and it's my impression from reviews of this novel that the writing and the narrative voice is really the hook, but I never completely bought into it. There were some aspects of the boy's character that felt too contradictory to me (and not the kind of thing that enforces the idea that "real people are contradictory") and there were several instances where the narration simply didn't make sense. To compare him to another author, there are some times when I read Michael Chabon and come across a passage that doesn't jibe on the page when I first read it, but if I mull it over, reading it in the narrator's voice, it reveals a structure that serves to support the tone and meaning of the narrator's point of view. In this book, there were places that I stumbled as a reader and try as I might, I couldn't make them fit into the character's voice or perspective at all.

[brocade_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was aggravated by the continual delaying tactics of the narrative. Is it a style? I suppose it's a style. A writer must have an awfully big ego to believe that his readers are willing to follow him on every niggling segue. Far too much felt like empty padding. I forced myself to continue until halfway through Part Two, but reading this novel was such a chore. Usually when I'm not enjoying a book, I leave it on a park bench for someone else to have a try. This book got cracked in half and tossed in the recycling bin. I still gave it 2 stars because there were excellent descriptions and character studies.

[tututhefirst_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.So starts one of my most baffling reads of the year. The story of 15 year old twins Dell and Berner Parsons is told by Dell in a reflective voice from many years in the future. It is a slow read: the prose, while laconic and sparse, is powerfully descriptive and evokes a mood that puts the reader right inside the head of the narrator. The pace is anything but thrilling. However, the story is riveting because there is enough revealed in the beginning to compel the reader to continue even when the going gets tough.The characters are not the most attractive people ever portrayed. In fact, some of them are downright bizarre. The motivations of the parents are very well explained, even if they aren't very laudatory. The father's previous peripatetic military career has made it difficult for the children to develop normal childhood friendships, or participate in school activities and left them feeling detached from any sense of a permanent home. The twins themselves are as different as chocolate and vanilla. Dell is timid, completely lacking in self-confidence, and incredibly unmotivated to do anything on his own. He just wants to enroll and stay in one school and join the chess club. His sister, on the other hand, is spunky, fed-up with the status quo, and in no way willing to continue wasting her time and talents on the current model of family life. The book is divided into three parts: Part I takes place mostly in Great Falls, Montana and centers around the life of this nuclear but dysfunctional family headed by a failed salesman father who has delusions of grandeur, and his wife who doesn't have a clue about how to encourage him toward some other lifestyle. In this part, the parents commit their crimes almost as a lark, and their already fractured life really begins to unravel.The book title led me to believe it was going to be about Canada, or at least would have that country as a setting, but it was not until Part II, page 207 of 432, that Dell begins his journey to Canada. Once he gets there, we encounter one of the most bizarre collections of characters ever presented. I found this part of the story especially hard to come to grips with because all of the people who make up the adult world of Dell Parsons are just not the kind of people I'm used to dealing with. The entire section is one long day after day parade of really unbelievable situations, of ignorance and disregard of the boy, of scenes bringing to mind indentured servitude, or total parental indifference, or incredible lack of any official oversight of either child. I really couldn't say whether it gives an accurate portrayal of Canada, but it does paint stunning word pictures of the geography and scenery of Saskatchewan. It is not until the rather short Part III that we get the grown up Dell's reflections on his life and how the events shaped in Montana and then Canada resolved to allow him to become the adult he is as he tells the story. In the end, we finally come to terms with all those unconventional situations and find a character reconciling his past with the present and future.The whole time I was reading this book, my reactions ranged wildly from really liking it (particularly Ford's way with words), to wanting to throw it across the room at exasperating situations and characters. The pace was so slow that at times I felt I was wasting my time, that nothing was ever going to happen, but then I'd realize that is often how teen-agers feel about life and I was then able to climb into Dell's skin to see things from his perspective. When I finished the book, I remember feeling that this was really an exceptional achievement. It is definitely a great book, and deserves the accolades it has received. I've seen many reviewers who claim it will be a classic (whatever the current definition of that is). Richard Ford is the only writer ever to win both the Pulitzer Prize and Pen/Faulkner Award for a single novel (Independence Day) and he has given us a reading experience that will definitely remain in the memory of all who immerse themselves in his eloquent, lean and poetic words.

[michaelbartley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a coming of age book, the teller of the story is a 15 year boy. of course is actually told by him when he is 66, he looks back and tries to use his 15 year voice. his is molded by two crimes, a bank robbery committed by his parents and a murder by a man that is responsible after his parents go to prison. the book is set in the 60s.

[russellbittner · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a compelling story of one family (two adults; two children) -- make no mistake about it. But I thought it took Richard Ford (a consummate writer, by the way) a long time to tell it.

By the end of the story, I was exhausted. It was emotionally wrenching -- particularly from the standpoint of Dell (the boy in the story).

I highly recommend "Canada" -- but possibly not as a first read (if you haven't already read any of Ford's other works).

[dickmanikowski · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Strange novel written from the perspective of an adolescent (who matures into a grown man) who, with his twin sister, finds himself adrift after his parents get arrested for an inept bank robbery. Before the authorities realize that the children are alone and put them into the foster care system, the sister runs away. A workplace friend of the jailed mother transports the narrator from his home in Montana to a hotel that her brother owns in a small town in Saskatchewan. A lot happens in the novel, and there's a lot for both the narrator and the reader to chew on.

[nyiper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

For me, there was just far too much detail---Dell's remembering of 50 years ago in extreme detail, down to colors and textures and eye meanings, mouth movements. Yes, a large part of the novel happened over a very few days when the life-changing event for him occurred but it was exhausting to listen to. I kept waiting for the audio to actually get somewhere. It seemed overly long with Dell's over-analysis of everything that had happened to him as a 15 year old---yes, absolutely not normal in any stretch of the word, but also not completely great reading/listening-to material in a novel.

[nataliesw · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was strange and beautiful.

[polarbear123_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In comparison to another review on here which preferred the first half of this book I think I would say that the second half was the more intriguing. Yes the first half set the scene well but it did feel like a bit of overkill. The background and the consequences of the robbery are picked over in minute detail. I definitely found this part slow going whereas the second half of the book flew by. Overall though a very thought provoking book and yes it definitely did feel emotionally draining by the end of it. Powerful stuff.

[icolford · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A heavy mantle of foreboding hangs over much of the action of Canada, Richard Ford's masterful new novel. This is the story of Dell Parsons, who in 1960 is fifteen and growing up with his mother and father and twin sister Berner in Great Falls, Montana when the family unit is abruptly blown apart in the wake of an ill-planned and ineptly executed bank robbery committed by their parents. After their parents are arrested the resentful Berner simply walks away, apparently to forge a life for herself elsewhere. Dell waits in the passive fashion that we learn is habitual to him, and is eventually rescued by a friend of his mother, who had agreed to take both children to Canada to live with her brother in rural Saskatchewan, a place that in Ford's vision is bleak and harrowing and smouldering with repressed violence. Dell spends his time in Saskatchewan closely observing the strange people around him, keeping his emotions in check and committing himself to nothing, while trying to reinvent himself--he does not want the fact that he is the son of bank robbers to define his life. It turns out that the man into whose care he has been delivered, Arthur Remlinger, has spent years doing the same thing: struggling to emerge from the shadow of a rash act of violence committed by the passionate and idealistic youth he used to be. As Remlinger's past slowly catches up with him, we wait with Dell to see what Remlinger will do when pushed to the wall. Much of the novel explores how past acts contribute to the person we become in the present, the impossibility of denying these acts, the inescapable consequences and the need for acceptance. It is also a novel about crossing borders, physical and moral. The narrative, first person from Dell's perspective, is dark and taut, crowded with untrustworthy characters all keeping an eye on each other and filled with astute observations on human behaviour. The brief final section shows us Dell and Berner reunited fifty years after the main action, each having responded in his and her own way to their parent's fateful decision. This is a wise and profound work of fiction that you will not soon forget.

[oldblack-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I finished this book with a strong feeling that Richard Ford is a very fine writer - but I find it really hard to identify what aspect of the work made me feel that way. It's a long-ish book, but there wasn't a single moment when I wished it would finish. On the other hand, it's not a page-turner that you want to keep reading to find out what happened - Ford summarizes the major dramatic events of the book in the first two sentences! Lesser writers need to keep such events secret from the reader to give an incentive to keep reading.You'll have to read what more eloquent reviewers say if you want to get a better idea why this book is so good. All I can say is that Ford's characters each have a view of the world that is very compelling in their own way. I somehow got the feeling that Richard Ford knows the way the world works.

[ptdilloway-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those literary novels that mostly makes you think the author's done better work in the past. Like some of the later John Irving novels I've read it's not completely awful, but there isn't much impact to it.

Basically in 1960 Dell Parson's parents rob a bank in North Dakota to pay off some Native Americans. The most implausible part is that no one takes the kids when the parents are arrested; they're just left there to fend for themselves even though they're 15. I don't think that would happen even in 1960 in a small Montana town. Most likely they'd have gone to the police station until a social worker could take them. But anyway, the book is called Canada because Dell ends up in Saskatchewan, in an even worse town than the one in Montana.

The idea of fleeing to Canada would have had a lot more impact back in 1968 or so with the Vietnam War in full swing and people looking to avoid the draft. In 2013 it comes off as quaint.

It's one of those novels too where the author uses a narrator who is probably the least interesting character in the book. This only works when the characters around that character are far more interesting, which is just not the case here.

Anyway, for what it is the book is well written, but it really felt to me like a book out of time.

That is all.

[bwkramer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Really well written book but the story is just not that entertaining. If the author writes other books they will be on my list to read but I can't enthusiastically recommend this one.

[pennyanne_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reviews of this book are mixed - from those who call it boring and unrealistic to those who hale it as a masterpiece. My review would be somewhere between these two positions. I loved this book for its language, for its characters and for its overall storyline. I did have trouble with certain parts of the book (mainly those occurring immediately following the arrest of Dell's parents) but overall I read this book in astonishment at the author's skill.

[suesbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thought this story of a young man's life, especially after his parents' robbery, was both very interesting and well written. Richard Ford writes character well, and also provides intelligent philosophy.

[jolerie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Things you did. Things you never did. Things you dreamed. After a long time they run together. Page 77Dell Parson and his twin sister Berner have their world turned upside down when their parents commit a crime that would forever separate their family. With his parents incarcerated and his sister taking off to make a life for herself, fifteen year old Dell is whisked off to the little god forsaken dot on a map in Saskatchewan. Hiding among strangers, Dell will come to terms with what life has given and taken and that sometimes life doesn't give us any answers, even when we try to ask the right questions. I'm not quite sure what to make of Canada after initially finishing the book. None of the actions of the characters in the books made any logical sense to me, even when they tried to give it an explanation. I'm not even sure what the point of the story was, but I am glad that despite having the odds stacked against him, and his numerous encounters with questionable people, Dell was able to maintain a semblance of an normal existence, whatever normal means. Given that Ford is a Pulitzer Prize winner, I'd want to give his other works a try, but judging Canada completely on its own merits, I'm not exactly convinced yet. Not a book I'd recommend that you have to pick up right at this very second.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

After hesitating to try it at all (comparisons of Ford to John Updike really put me off), and then being disinfected* by some style issues in the first few chapters, I found myself totally engrossed with this novel, in which Dell Parsons, from a perspective of 50 years hence, tells us about a presumably formative period of his life--the year he was almost 16, when his parents, by stupidly attempting to rob a bank, effectively abandoned Dell and his twin sister, Berner. In order to prevent her children's ending up in the hands of the juvenile authorities in the event of her arrest (which she seems to have had wits enough to realize was inevitable), Mrs. Parsons arranged for a friend to spirit them away to Canada where presumably they could start life over without the inconvenient baggage of convicted bank robbers for parents. Berner had other ideas, but Dell ended up under the dubious protection of a big fish in the mighty small pond of Fort Royal, Saskatchewan, a place where nothing much happened other that goose hunting, and where he had plenty of time to ponder questions that had already started to bother him: does a man's character show in his face? are you destined to be who you become by some fundamental element of your makeup? does it really matter what happens to you, or will you become your true self regardless? It's a quiet journey Dell takes, despite a bit of violence here and there, and ultimately he believes he ended up precisely where he would have, had his parents gone on with their "ordinary" lives, sent him to college and never dreamed of robbing a bank or sending him off to be fostered by strangers in a strange land. I'm not sure when I stopped minding Ford's style, or if he dropped the awkward quirks that broke my reading stride early on, but by page 75 of so, I was just caught in the story, and that part of my brain that is aware of the author was sound asleep in a corner somewhere. I'm docking the novel 1/2 a star for the rocky start, although that may have been my own fault. I am very glad to have made Richard Ford's acquaintance, and am happy to say I find him much more in affinity with John Irving (Last Night in Twisted River came to mind) than with Updike. *cf Bucky KattReview written March 2015

[shazjhb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent coming of age book. So fabulous

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

a story of a boy who survives the foolish acts of adults. His parents rob a bank and are arrested, his sister runs away and his mother has arranged that he is taken to Canada to live with unreliable strangers, completely alone. This is not giving anything away, the reader always knows because the boy, Del, tells you. The setting is 1960. I really had a hard time believing some of this story but then, maybe. Del was a twin. He wanted to go to school. He had interests such as bee keeping. He was a good kid. What really held me was the narration. Something about Del's voice was very compelling. It's a story that looks at marginalized life, breakdown of family and the effects of crime on the children.

[ameise1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is a very interesting story about a short part of a man's life when he was 15 years old and how this had influenced his whole life. The events are told by himself 50 years. The story is set in three parts whereas the first part is the longest and is set in the USA. Therefore I had some difficulties to make a link to its title. Part two and three are mostly set in Cananda. In the first part he describes his family and the his parent's bank robbery. It is fascinating how detailed he is telling the incident. I got a very good feeling about all family members and the strong bond between him and his twin sister. In the second part he arrived in Cananda where he had to learn being on his own and how greenly he was. In the third part he is telling us how he is living today, what he is doing and what is important for him. It's also how he gets confronted with his past.The story is carefully written with a lot of love for all characters.

[rdra1962 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

No suspense, minimal action, no plot twists/surprises, endless, repetitive descriptions of the same people/scenery/smells, a dull main character- Dell.....I just kept waiting for something meaningful to happen to reward me for slogging through this long, slow novel. Two stars for masterful descriptions of towns, rooms, and all of those smells, but so little happened - actually things happened but it felt like Dell was sleep- walking through all of it.

[novelcommentary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Richard Ford is one of my favorite authors. No American male should go through life without reading the Harry Bascombe trilogy. This novel, like his earlier one Wildlife, is a reflective piece where the narrator looks back at his life. Now a days as we have the ability to download a sample of the novel, I was pretty much hooked by the first sentence. "First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. The robbery is the more important part, since it served to set my and my sister’s lives on the courses they eventually followed. Nothing would make complete sense without that being told first." The book goes on to detail how the narrator (Dell) and his sister moved around during their earlier years, children of a retired military man in the 60's. His father's inability to find work led him to develop a scheme of selling meat, slaughtered by the Cree Indians and sold to the railroad. He was the middleman and the one stuck in the middle when the deal went south. Soon after that Dell and his sister's life goes south as well as a failed bank robbery leaves them as virtual orphans. The narrative then moves into Dell's experience in Canada, living with an eccentric brother of his mother's friend. It is a harsh experience, but Dell manages to reflect how to adjust to the changes life throws at you. "The world doesn’t usually think about bank robbers as having children — though plenty must. But the children’s story — which mine and my sister’s is — is ours to weigh and apportion and judge as we see fit. . . . Ruskin wrote that composition is the arrangement of unequal things. Which means it’s for the composer to determine what’s equal to what, and what matters more and what can be set to the side of life’s hurtling passage onward.” This is an important theme in the novel, and one that is appropriate to suit some of the events in my life right now - the idea of tolerating loss well. I would recommend this book to others. If you are new to Richard Ford , start at the Sportswriter. the Harry Bascombe books, like Updike's Rabbit novels, are essential American reading experiences.