Frank Bascombe has been out of the realty business for a while, which could be a good thing as Hurricane Sandy has just desecrated the New Jersey shore. In his senescence Frank has started to jettison friends and words, "in the belief that life’s a matter of gradual subtraction, aimed at a solider, more-nearly-perfect essence". In these four stories Bascombe offers up his wry wisdom on ageing and the "new normal". Despite his attempts at streamlining, he keeps meeting people. In I’m Here, he tries to escape Arnie Urquhart, the recently feminized owner of his previous house; in Everything Could Be Worse, a woman called Ms Pines knocks on his door and reveals something unnerving about the history of Frank’s current home; and in the penultimate story Frank attempts to deliver – without incident – an orthopaedic pillow to his ex-wife. This novel-of-sorts is beautifully crafted and Ford an expert in creating humour out of that strange relationship between the inner and outer worlds.
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