In the final four decades of the 20th century, author John Updike chronicled the life of Harry Angstrom from high school to death. In a series of four novels, he portrayed the quintessential middle-class American male facing contemporary problems of drugs, marital infidelity, family issues, life and ultimately death. Throughout the saga, readers could identify with a character and an era that mirrored issues and events in their own lives. Updike ended the Rabbit saga with Angstrom's death in 1990. Perhaps now both author and character have been replaced by Frank Bascombe, who appears in Richard Ford's THE LAY OF THE LAND, which recounts middle-class American life passing from the 20th century into the 21st.

Bascombe first appeared to readers as a failed novelist turned sportswriter suffering through an unsuccessful marriage and the death of his young son in Ford's 1985 novel, THE SPORTSWRITER. In 1995, INDEPENDENCE DAY marked Bascombe's return to American literature and resulted in a Pulitzer Prize for Ford. It focused on a 4th of July weekend in Bascombe's life as the now New Jersey real estate man faced issues surrounding his divorce and the difficulties attendant to raising a troubled child. In THE LAY OF THE LAND it is Thanksgiving of 2000, the nation still awaits a final determination of the presidential election, and Frank Bascombe, now 55 years old, confronts his own mortality while battling prostate cancer.

In earlier novels Bascombe had made the transition from sportswriter to real estate salesman. THE LAY OF THE LAND finds him continuing in that trade but having moved to the New Jersey shores. He has remarried, but his current wife Sally has left him after learning that her former husband, presumed dead, was discovered to be alive and residing in Scotland. If this surprise were not enough to complicate one's life, Bascombe's first wife takes this moment to profess her continued love and desire to resume married life. For Bascombe these events lead to long introspective personal dialogues often enunciated while he drives to his various real estate transactions. They are recounted by Ford in great detail as the novel stretches to nearly 500 pages.

Thanksgiving week will mark the reuniting of the Bascombe family, his two surviving children and his former wife. There is a void in his life, created perhaps by the death of his son at age eight. The surviving children are disappointments to Bascombe, and the family holiday gathering is simply an uncomfortable occasion for the entire clan. Along the way, however, there are a few surprises for the reader detailed in Bascombe's extraordinary voice. Ford has the remarkable ability to speak to important issues of life through ordinary people, a talent that most readers will value.

Ford has indicated that THE LAY OF THE LAND will be the final installment in the life of Frank Bascombe. Many loyal readers will find this a sad turn of events and can only hope that Ford will reconsider his decision. In a complicated and frightening world, Bascombe's wise counsel and views can be rewarding for many readers like myself who desire to grow old with an everyman like Bascombe.