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Jul 14, 2011

Teresa rated it:

4 1/2 stars, if I could.

I've said many times I don't really believe in the entity called the Great American Novel, but if I did, this book would certainly qualify. It's wonderfully written (though exhausting at times with all the details, but trust the author, they all serve a purpose), chuckle-out loud funny at other times and even heartbreaking in a completely non-sentimental way, while giving such insights into man, a man and the American way of life, warts and all.

I More...

30 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 15, 2007

Sarah rated it:

This was recommended by Lex Runciman, my English professor, in his blog Far Corner Reader, so it's not a huge surprise that it reminds me of the types of books that I often read in college: the kind that I don't get as much out of unless I'm reading it with twenty other people and having thrice-weekly discussions. I'm sure that there's some sort of theme here about growing old, life in America, and stuff like that, but to me, it's just the story of Frank Bascombe, a divorced prostate-cancer-surv More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2009

Michael rated it:

A hard book to explain or even recommend in some ways, I actively disliked it for the first 50 pages, but once I settled into the rhythms of it, I came around to the idea that this is the most stylistically over the top naturalistic book I've ever read. Ford details every thought and action of Frank Bascombe for three days and it's often very funny, very acerbic and always stunningly written. The music might sometimes seem convoluted or even grating, but once you settle into it, you realize how More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2009

Pris rated it:

Bittersweet Downshift In Life Expectations , 13 Nov 2006

"This novel showcases many of Mr. Ford's gifts: his ability to capture the nubby, variegated texture of ordinary life; his unerring ear for how ordinary people talk; his talent for conjuring up subsidiary characters with a handful of brilliant brushstrokes.
MICHIKO KAKUTANI, New York Times

Frank Bascombe, real estate manager, aka sportswriter and novelist is in the prime of his More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2007

Andy rated it:

So we come to the third (and seemingly final) installment of Richard Ford's brilliant portrait of contemporary American adult life, as seen through the eyes of Ford's meditative everyman, Frank Bascombe.

I have spent a great deal of time now with Mr. Bascombe over the past few years, and in book time, we've passed nearly 20 years together. Here, I slipped so easily back into reading Frank's voice, it was like I was passing time with an old college buddy - someone I know, but only see More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Alicia rated it:

I hate it when I read a book and can appreciate the good points of it but not really be able to identify with the characters or lose myself in the book. Richard Ford is a technically gifted author with a huge following of appreciative readers but I have never been that enamoured of his writing. Perhaps it is because he so often explores "boomer angst" and I cannot really relate to it.

In this novel, realtor Frank Bascombe, previously appearing in Independence Day and The Spo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Lauren added it

Horrible. Utterly and completely horrible. Some context for why I read all three books: I packed Ford's trilogy for a week-long trip to Paris - the only books in my bag, which were the only non-French books to be found. Aside from Ford's now very obvious formula of chapter after chapter of Bascombe's narcissistic ramblings combined with (no surprise!) yet another life-changing event about 60 pages from the end, what I disliked most about this book is a toss up between statements that could only More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 30, 2009

Tim added it

Heebie Jeebies in the Permanent Period: This novel is about what it's like to be staring down the last third of your life when you're an upper-middle class, white, male American living on the east coast. You might be thinking that's a crowded piece of real estate, what with Philip Roth's [[ASIN:0307277712 Everyman]] and other works. Ford defends the property well and has a lot to say. My one complaint with the book is that he takes more room than he needs to say it. It's a thick book, and some p More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 05, 2011

Ron rated it:

One of my dearest friends fell sick about a year ago just before we were scheduled to go up for our yearly Memorial Day visit. Since he wasn't feeling well, we decided to hold off for a bit and maybe come up later in the summer, but by later in the summer, he had discovered that he had cancer and decided it would be best to wait until he had gone through chemo. He got through chemo and after a bit got the prognosis, which was that he had mabye two years left if he went throught another round of More...

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Sep 21, 2010

Julia rated it:

I'd like to buy Richard Ford a drink. In honor of Frank Bascombe, I'd like to make it an old fashioned.

I first read Richard Ford when I was far too young to appreciate him--I think I stumbled across "Independence Day" in late elementary school. I was glad to revisit him at the beach this summer.

In terms of logistics, "The Lay of the Land" is the third in a set of novels about Frank Bascombe's life (Who is he, you ask? A modern-day self-deprecating Re More...

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Dec 15, 2009

Susan rated it:

Richard Ford is a victim of his own success. This book needed the hand of a good editor, and I suspect no one in Ford's orbit had the courage to tell him to cut mercilessly and just "get on with it." The slow pace is encumbered by excessive detail, long clause-upon-clause paragraphs, and repetitive musings by a tedious Frank Bascombe. Ford does an excellent job of fleshing out the time and place (roughly the last quarter of the 20th century, wherein New Jersey capitulated to suburban s More...

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Jan 10, 2010

Joe rated it:

When you foolishly make a New Year’s resolution to read fifty-two books in fifty-two weeks, a pledge I foolishly made, Lay of the Land is so not the way to begin the marathon. This is not a book to race through, nor is it a book that will grab you by the lapels and pull you headlong from start to finish. No. It’s a book to be savored and enjoyed for what it is -- a character study and compelling portrait of America through one man’s eyes.

Lay of the Land is the third book in a trilogy More...

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Nov 24, 2008

Paul rated it:

OK. At the risk of sounding mawkish or, gasp, even worse, sentimental, I'd describe this book, along with the other two Frank Bascombe novels (less so The Sportswriter, even more so Independence Day) as: wonderful. I often tell people that reading them is like slipping into a warm bath or, more appropriately, a warm parka. They're comforting. Which is not to say they're light or feel-good. They're books you don't ever want to end (though if they didn't they would become quite tiresome, due to th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Ellie rated it:

I love this book almost as much as I liked THE SPORTSWRITER, the first of Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe trilogy. Frank Bascombe is a grown-up Holden Caulfield--just as wry, humane, perceptive, funny and sad, just as bereft (or, if possible, more bereft, having lost, shortly before the first of the books, not a brother but a child). By the time we meet Frank again in THE LAY OF THE LAND, he is in his mid-fifties, selling houses instead of sportswriting, and is reckoning with the departure of hi More...

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

Not all of Richard Ford's readers share his fondness for monologues, introspection, and the mundane details of everyday life. To be sure, some found them fascinating and insightful, but others were decidedly turned off. Most felt Ford had gone slightly overboard with his decision to follow Frank from car to bar to bathroom. Also, critics regarded the series of mounting unfortunate circumstances as ranging from those hopelessly contrived to those luminously metaphorical. The book seems most appea

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Mar 25, 2010

Joan rated it:

I did not like The Sportswriter, the first of the trilogy starring Frank Bascombe as it seemed forced and self-conscious, but I really liked this final novel which focuses on Frank at age 58, suffering from prostate cancer and running a real estate business while separated from his second wife, Sally. Either Ford matured as a writer or Frank did! What makes this book so good are the acute observations on every conceivable topic. Also, Frank, who in The Sportswriter seemed self-involved and morbi More...

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May 28, 2009

Steve rated it:

In this, the last in the trilogy, Frank is still the ever-thinking everyman, now age 55. He recently returned from the Mayo Clinic with less than full assurances, has seen his second wife leave him under odd circumstances, and has taken two steps forward and one step back (or is it one forward and two back?) with his first wife and their two grown kids. Frank has plenty to mull over. But then Ford offers up quite an assortment for readers to chew on, too.

1) Is there such a thing More...

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2011

Kathy rated it:

Richard Ford returns to the story of Frank Bascombe, here of The Sportswriter and Independence Day, here in The Lay of the Land. Although there is more action than in the previous two, this is still primary a stream of consciousness rumination straight from Frank's brain to the page.

Frank is 55 now, in the part of life he refers to as "The Permanent Period," where you are sailing into the sunset, if not smoothly, then at least somewhat secure in the knowledge that you canno More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 02, 2009

Trina rated it:

As I read this extremely long novel about two days in the life of a 55-year old man with health and marital problems, what kept me going was not the story, which is contorted like all our everydays are contorted, but the writing, which is masterful and as a result effortless and luminous. I am in awe of Richard Ford's skill. Still, I wouldn't recommend this to too many people, because I don't know how much my friends want to read musings on the late periods of one's life, chronic illness, deat More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 08, 2010

Jake rated it:

I first read the Sportswriter at my dad's recommendation when he was the age that Frank is in The Lay of the Land. When I read the third book, I was the same age as Frank was in the first. Okay, those two sentences aren't exactly profound, but this amazing trilogy did help me understand my father's life perspective and gave context my own journey from youth into adulthood like nothing else I've ever read. Sometimes when I panic and worry about how important the decisions of the "now" a More...

1 comment like

Aug 25, 2011

Dorothy rated it:

This is the final of Richard Ford's three books featuring his character, Frank Bascombe. In the first book, The Sportswriter, the action took place around Easter, and I found Bascombe to be a not very appealing character. In the second book, Independence Day, the action revolved around that eponymous holiday, and I began to understand and have a bit of fellow feeling for the main character. Finally, in this book, my conclusion is that Frank Bascombe, like most of us perhaps, is as good a pers More...

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Apr 25, 2011

Davida rated it:

My dad said this book was the Book of the Decade. While I read it, I kept wondering what made him confer upon it that honor. Yes, the writing is skillful and yes, the story is compelling, but the book is long and it drags and it's sometimes unbelievable.

I was very drawn to many of the characters who the protagonist, Frank Bascombe, meets along the way during his journey. One of author Richard Ford's skills is his attention to detail and ability to capture people's quirks in such a More...

2 comments like

Jun 23, 2009

Clifford rated it:

A slow read - dense, detailed account of a real estate salesman. It ain't James Bond. But in the evening knocking off a chapter is like a conversation with a neighbor. There's no hurry to get to the end.

An interesting sense of narrative time and rhythm. In my initial impression (above) I think I captured what seems to be an irritation for some. I've read comments about the book in which readers expect some sort of conventional time based narrative that is event driven. I think the au More...

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Apr 25, 2009

Brett rated it:

Maybe 3-3.5 stars.

This is the third, and final book, by Ford about the same character. It isn't some Lord of the Rings type trilogy. Rather, Ford wrote a successful book (the Sportswriter), followed it up years later with a Pulitzer prize winner (Independence Day), and then decided to finalize the tale with The Lay of the Land many years later. Similar to what John Updike did. The character ages with the author, which is interesting. However, this book takes place during the unc More...

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Dec 15, 2011

Oscar rated it:

Ha sido un placer reencontrarse de nuevo con Frank Bascombe, el personaje creado por Richard Ford en la que parece ser la última novela en la que aparezca, tras 'El periodista deportivo' y 'El Día de la Independencia', su obra maestra. Como si de un viejo amigo se tratara, al que hace años que no ves (concretamente diez años, desde la publicación de 'El Día de la Independencia'), Frank nos cuenta qué tal le está yendo la vida, cuando faltan dos días para el Acción de Gracias del año 2000.
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Apr 14, 2008

Peter rated it:

Over 20 years on from 'The Sportswriter', and a decade since 'Independence Day', Ford brings the saga of his American everyman Frank Bascombe to what feels like a satisfying conclusion here. Still selling real estate in his mid-50s, with a case of prostate cancer, an absent second wife, and children no less dysfunctional as they ever were, Bascombe spends the Thanksgiving weekend of the year 2000 (with the Presidential election painfully unresolved and a sense of impending catastrophe vaguely n More...

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Sep 04, 2008

Cathy rated it:

While I enjoyed/admired both The Sportswriter & Independence Day I don't remember thinking during the last 10+ years, "Gee, I wish Richard Foed would write another book about Frank Bascombe".That being said, while reading The Lay of the Land I kept thinking, "I can't believe I had to wait so long for this 3rd book!".Ford does such a great job of capturing the truth of real life,including all of the complexities,contradictions,and messiness.
I met a young woman on the Max More...

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Apr 06, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

As always, Ford gives me tons to think about. There is so much going on in Frank Bascombe's rambling reflections, the overall themes sort of sneaked up on me. I think the obvious one is presented right at the beginning of the book: Frank reads a newspaper article in which a killer asks his victim "Are you ready to meet your maker?". At age 55, with a prostate full of radioactive titanium BBs, Frank does not feel that he is ready (and why should he?). Whether he needs to get ready More...

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Aug 16, 2011

Bill rated it:

A fine, if not particularly notable, finish to the story of Frank Bascombe, told by Richard Ford over a twenty year period in three novels. Except for the occasional moment, the book is entirely a stream-of-consciousness monologue. This makes it a bit dry from time to time, but when it works, it is engaging at a very basic level; like your having these thoughts along with our protagonist. On the flip side, like most of us, are thoughts are pretty mundane and make for a boring read too often.

Refl More...

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Aug 03, 2009

Marvin rated it:

This is the third in Ford's trilogy about a middle-class American perhaps even more prototypical than John Updike's Rabbit. The New Jersey realtor's happy second marriage suffers a surprising jolt, & he's undergoing treatment for prostate cancer at age 59, but he's still trying to convince himself (& us) that the secret to life is acceptance, no matter what it throws at us. This is clearly a classic trilogy but somehow doesn't strike home for me the way the Rabbit series does.

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