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The Lay Of The Land
by Richard Ford
The author revives his Frank Bascombe character ("The Sportswriter" and the Pulitzer-winning "Independence Day") for the first time in over a decade with this novel set in the fall of 2000.
Knopf, 496 pages
10/24/2006
$26.95
ISBN: 0679454683
Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Publishers Weekly
Ford summons a remarkable voice for his protagonist -- ruminant, jaunty, merciless, generous and painfully observant -- building a dense narrative from Frank's improvisations, epiphanies and revisions. [11 Sept 2006, p.34]
New York Observer Andre Bernard
An experience that transcends ordinary reading. A candidate
for the great American novel, the trilogy of Frank Bascombe books is a heartbreaking masterpiece. [6 Nov 2006, p.20]
Kirkus Reviews
Reaffirms that Frank Bascombe is for Ford what Rabbit Angstrom is for Updike. [15 Sept 2006, p.922]
The Independent Douglas Kennedy
The Lay of the Land is a superb achievement. Reading it, I felt the best sort of professional envy. It's that damn good.
The Independent James Urquhart
On its own, The Lay of the Land is an exhilarating audit of Bascombe's emotional stock-room, but taken with its two predecessors, it is a masterly account of a modulating adult life. Ford's canvas is huge, but his wealth of subtle detail remains astonishingly vivid.
The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Guy Vanderhaeghe
The Lay of the Land qualifies as a bona fide page-turner, a book that keeps the reader up late at night eager to find out what happened to whom and how. But for me, the chief delight of the novel is its narrator's winning, pitch-perfect voice. [28 Oct 2006]
Christian Science Monitor Merle Rubin
As vibrant a book as any that Richard Ford has written. It bristles with energy, with a natural assurance on the part of its writer.
New York Review Of Books Claire Messud
As scrupulous, and as true, as realist fiction can be.
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement James Campbell
While readers may admire Richard Ford's skilful wrapping of his tale with contemporary ribbons, they will most of all enjoy once again being in Frank's company, registering his comic bite into life as it comes at him. [4 Oct 2006]
Sydney Morning Herald Andrew Riemer
Ford is such a fine writer that he pulls off a notable feat. At the end we come to share Frank's suspicion that somehow, mysteriously and against all the evidence, life offers some consolations after all.
Chicago Tribune Veronique de Turenne
The jolts and bends of the journey are secondary to what we're here for, and that's the way, through the singular lens of Frank Bascombe, Ford sees the world.
London Review Of Books Christopher Tayler
While Ford is good at animating static, talky scenes by keeping an eye on some shifting detail in the background, the large-scale character development is a bit effortful in these novels. Similarly, his principled lack of interest in cheap narrative devices, such as conflict and the slow release of plot points, can result in a boringness problem. [30 Nov 2006]
The Guardian Geoff Dyer
Good, bad or great, all writers are like inept criminals: they leave their prints on everything they touch. In this case readers need no training in literary forensics to see the text offering clues about why it feels bloated. Or, to put it another way, Bascombe has become a mole, subtly working against his creator's best interests by giving voice to the reader's doubts about the distension of which he is the agent.
The Observer Tim Adams
Often in the book, you feel like you could listen to Frank observing his life for ever; very occasionally, it feels like you are. There's not a line in the nearly 500 pages that you would want to lose, though.
Library Journal Stephen Morrow
As in many literary classics, the beauty of this novel is in its presentation -- the word choice and perfect phrases -- and in Bascombe's unwaveringly honest and humorous narration. Ford manages to become his character and remove authorial boundaries, transforming his novel into a story told to us by an old friend. [15 Oct 2006, p.51]
The New York Times Book Review A.O. Scott
The point of this rambling is less to advance a coherent philosophy than to dramatize what it is like to try, in the face of constantly mutating, endlessly confusing experience, to come up with one. The cracked, fuzzy, sad-sack aphorisms that dot this novel’s pages represent not the kernels of a man’s wisdom, but rather the chaff of his personality
Wall Street Journal Tara Gallagher
Verisimilitude can be dull, and several of Frank's mental journeys feel long. Mr. Ford's prose, however, is far from dull; virtuosic flights and crescendos animate passages that we might otherwise think we could do without.
Washington Post Jeff Turrentine
It's a testament to Ford's mastery that we never tire of Frank's company.
Booklist Joanne Wilkinson
Ford crafts a mesmerizing narrative voice -- one that gives us, with offhanded eloquence and a kind of grim mirth, "the lay of the land." [1 Nov 2006, p.4]
Daily Telegraph Matt Thorne
The Lay of the Land is never less than entertaining, and there are some great sequences, but ultimately the novel doesn't match The Sportswriter or Independence Day.
San Francisco Chronicle June Sawyers
A big, glorious, messy evocation of a life lived, if not always to its fullest, at least as best as it can be under the circumstances.
Boston Globe Gail Caldwell
Even with its sometimes desultory nature, the last half of The Lay of the Land is so rich -- so filled with insight, humor, and stylistic grace -- that I didn't want this long and winding trail to end.
Chicago Sun-Times Stephen Lyons
Perhaps this is Ford's greatest gift as a writer. Lay of the Land, as with the entire Ford canon, is distinct not only for its singular style but also because of its generosity. Ford shows that life is never easy and never placid. We will fight and flail, and love and lose. Yet we keep moving forward for that occasional moment of pure understanding.
Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
We like Frank even if he sometimes turns into a bit of a windbag, and despite the fact that -- it hurts to report this -- Lay feels easily like the least of the three Bascombe books.
Slate Blake Bailey
Frank appears to be forever grappling with the question of how to cope with his own diminished expectations. Any true resolution is fleeting, however, such that these novels seem less a progression than a kind of eternal recurrence -- a fact that makes Frank all the more representative, perhaps.
Daily Telegraph Lewis Jones
The narrative is leisurely, meandering, repetitive, soothing and boring but is occasionally enlivened by witty observation.
USA Today Bob Minzesheimer
At times it seems as if Ford spent a lot of time driving around, taking notes that end up as needless details in the novel.
Los Angeles Times David L. Ulin
Let me be completely honest: I can't make up my mind about The Lay of the Land. For the last few weeks, I've wrestled with it and have been alternately indifferent and enthralled. [22 Oct 2006, p.R3]
Atlantic Monthly Joseph O'Neill
For all of its brilliance -- Ford's sentence-by-sentence resourcefulness is astonishing -- The Lay of the Land never pivots, as its predecessors did, on an engaging drama. [Dec 2006]
LA Weekly Michelle Huneven
Despite the author's humor and intelligence and the sheer beauty of Ford's sentences, Frank Bascombe's compulsive, unfocused musings cease accumulating narrative power midway through and the book sags under its own weight.
The Nation Benjamin Hedin
The book's valedictory finale rings artificial, since it is achieved by a device and not the evolution of its characters.
The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
It is a padded, static production, far more overstuffed with unnecessary asides and digressions than its predecessors.
 The average user rating for this book is 9.5 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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