The Lay of the Land

By: Richard Ford

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

BONUS FEATURE: Exclusive interview with the author.

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.©2006 Richard Ford; (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

Praise for Richard Ford:

“Ford captures the intricacies of human beings better than just about any other writer alive. . . . [He] is a great surveyor of human nature, a master of the small moments that take place in between and shape the larger movements of our lives.”
–The Globe and Mail

“With a mastery second to none, Richard Ford has created a character we know as well as our next-door neighbours.
Frank Bascombe has earned himself a place beside Willy Loman and Harry Angstrom in our literary landscape, but he has done so with a wry wit and a fin de siècle wisdom that is very much his own.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“Ford is one of the greatest writers of our time, from any country and in any language, whose finely crafted words can pierce the heart like an arrow.”
–Calgary Herald

Barrett was fine, but why not Richard Poe?

Any additional comments?

I was sorely disappointed that Richard Poe, the narrator of Sportswriter and Independence Day, was not called upon to do this book. For me he was the voice of Frank Bascombe. Glad to see he is back in Let Me Be Frank With You. Not securing him for Lay of the Land was a huge misstep.

Wisdom from the realtor

Richard Ford has to be one of the best writers working today. Each sentence, wonderfully narrated, is packed with meaning. The strength of this novel is not plot but character. You get to know Frank, and in the process he teaches you a great deal about how to learn to accept life, family, and a variety of other imperfections. There is a great deal of wit here - I agree with the reviewer who found delight in Frank's visit to the Lesbian bar while waiting for his car to be repaired across the street. But I would say that the wisdom in this book is what finally makes it such a good one. Frank learns to accept what his life has given and to accept and even love the people he encounters. I had the feeling several times that Frank is a better person than I am, or at least a much wiser one. Frank a very likeable man - one I would delight in purchasing a house from - but also a very wise man who has embraced all that life offers with a serene intelligence that is at the same time pragmatic and down to earth. The narrator is excellent, with just the right timing for those marvelous sentences. This is one great listen.

Richard Ford, get out of my mind!

Richard Ford has written one of those books that make you believe he has been reading your mind for years. If you are a middle-aged suburban man, Frank Bascome is as real as the guy you see in the mirror every morning. We have the tendency to think our personal experience is unique, but a good author that so perfectly recreates your experience can let you see how universal life's story's are. I find it liberating and humorous to realize my situation is not as unique as I thought, hearing another man struggle with the same questions puts my fears and doubts in perspective.

I loved it, but realize what your getting.

If you like Richard Russo style musings of a story that tends to slowly unveil through the eyes of a middle age male (of which I am...) then this is a great book. I loved it and was not happy when, at first, this was the only Audible Richard Ford book.

My daughter is all about Jodi Picoult and the new Twilight books. Clearly they meet her needs as a teenage reader, although I find them overwritten, melodramatic tripe.

And this is my point: This book met me where i was at, and is a great read for those looking to see how a big segment of middle age white guy thinks and sees much of the world. I suppose for many, this would seem silly...but I loved the writing and the narration was great.

A Wonder of a Book

After an 11-year hiatus, the Pulitzer prize-winning author revisits his most enduring character, Frank Bascombe, a former sportswriter turned real estate agent. Bascombe, now 55 years old, newly divorced, battling prostate cancer, has reached the Permanent Period: "the time of life when very little you say comes in quotes, when few contrarian voices mutter doubts in your head, when the past seems more generic than specific, when life's a destination more than a journey and when who you feel yourself to be is pretty much how people will remember you once you've croaked. . . ." It's Thanksgiving week, and Frank Bascombe narrates with an armchair philosopher's appreciation for everything from the route he drives to work to the grandest themes in everyday life as he navigates the highways and byways of the Garden State. His two grown children (his "reformed" lesbian daughter and his emotionally removed son who pens greeting cards for Hallmark), his Tibetan business associate, Mike Mahony, and his ex-wife Sally, all come under his highly entertaining scrutiny. Although the book could be criticized for taking pages to describe the simplest interactions, with detail that can be overwhelming numbing, the very notion of this novel is that the drama is in the details of our non-dramatic lives. The audio format lends itself to such expository story-telling, and the narrator -- who sounds like I envision Frank Bascombe sounds -- enhances the tale.