by Richard Ford (Find this Book)
The first novel in six years from Pulitzer Prize winner (for
Independence Day) Ford is a tragic rural farrago composed of two
awkwardly joined halves. In the late 1950s, in Great Falls, Mont.,
teenage twins Dell and Berner Parson have different concerns: Berner's
is whether to run away with her boyfriend; Dell's is chess and
beekeeping. Their comically mismatched parents-rakish, smalltime schemer
Bev and brooding, Jewish Neeva-have problems beyond a joyless union.
Bev's stolen beef scheme goes awry, leaving him owing his Cree Indian
accomplices. In desperation he robs a bank, roping his wife into the
crime, and Dell, peering back much later, chronicles every aspect of the
intricate but misguided plan, which left his parent incarcerated and he
and Berner alone. Berner runs away, and Dell ends up in the care of a
shady family friend at a hunting lodge in Canada, living an even more
barren and lonely existence than he had in Great Falls. The book's first
half has the makings of a succinct rural tragedy, but Dell's
inquisition of the past is so deliberate that it eventually moves from
poignant to played out. The Canadian section has a mythic strangeness,
but adds little, as Dell remains a passive witness to the foolhardy
actions of adults. A book from Ford is always an event and his prose is
assured and textured, but the whole is not heavily significant. -- Publisher's Weekly
