The Sportswriter

Almost put this down after 50 pages but there was something hypnotic about living so completely in this delusional man's head. The main adjective Bascombe uses to describe himself is “dreamy” and the whole novel - almost 400 pages to describe a weekend - is very fantastical, if not nightmarish. Frank is so self-assured it takes a while to realise how weak and pathetic he actually is. Everything he says out loud he assures us isn't how he really feels, or what he really thinks. I was surprised when Vicki punched him in the mouth but by the end the surprise is why more people in his life haven't done the same thing.

The most dismal and dull book that I could not put down. Ford has created a nice set of characters about whom I care nothing, whose lives are pointless, and whose spirits are empty. But boy oh boy, when those dull, empty people have conversations, Ford puts the reader right there and sometimes makes your skin crawl. After one such conversation, the one with Herb, dismal and dull though it was, I uttered a “Wow!” loud enough to draw attention to myself in the diner. It alone was worth the price of admission. Ford is magnificent at what he does, and though what he does is drag you along to watch a perfectly uninteresting person live out his perfectly uninteresting life, he made me want to keep reading and left me amazed at what a well-crafted paragraph can do.