It’s been said that the The Lay of the Land, the final book in Richard Ford’s Ralph Bascombe trilogy, was “less successful” than the others. I don’t subscribe to that theory; in my view, it’s the most successful . . . except for the end. Which is a big exception. The climax felt incongruously violent and unnecessary, not unlike Richard Russo’s to Empire Falls. Both felt contrived for Hollywood or something, unworthy of either writer or either work, detracting from the elegant realism that hums through both these great pieces of American literature.
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Matthew GeyerMatthew Geyer is the author of two novels, Strays (2008) and Atlantic View (2020). . Archives
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