Let me be Frank with you

Frank Bascombe is old. Apparently Richard Ford wanted to write about getting old. And, sorry, it's just about as dull as some of Philip Roth's last books about getting old. Ford will always be a good writer, but he didn't really have much to say here.

This is the fourth book relating to the life of this character, Frank Bascombe. My favorite still remains the first one, The Sportswriter, but that may just be due to the circumstances of my own life. Most people seem to like the second one, Independence Day best, and it won all the awards.

In any event, this book, unlike the others, is not a novel. It is supposedly a set of interconnected short stories. To me, they weren't as interconnected as the marketing suggested. However, they were all interesting stories and well written. Overall, I yearned for more than these four short glimpses in Frank's life, but I was glad to get a little more time with him.