From Booklist
That the best-laid plans of mice and men soon go awry is a generalization made concrete in Ford's latest novel, which picks up the story of Frank Bascombe where it left off in a previous novel, The Sportswriter (1986). The time is now the late 1980s, and Frank, divorced, is no longer sportswriting but selling real estate. Within the time span of preparing and participating in a Fourth of July weekend, Frank tells us in excruciating detail about the Sisyphean boulders he has been forced to push uphill throughout his life: career, kids, ex-wife, current girlfriend, and the unpleasant people occupying his rental property. Frank's plan is to take his teenage son on the road over the Fourth to visit sports halls of fame, but, more significantly, to try to get the troubled youth somewhat straightened out. Fate intervenes in the form of an accident to his son's eye; the boy, as it turns out, will recover, but this is hardly the outing Frank had planned. But, then, as pessimistic Frank says at an earlier point in the book, "In two hours I have been suspected of being a priest, a shithead, and, now, a homo. I am apparently not getting my message across." Are any of us, for that matter? Ford has a large following, so this less-than-satisfying sequel is likely to generate deman

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