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The Lay of the Land (Frank Bascombe, Bk 3) (Audio CD) (Unabridged)
The Lay of the Land - Frank Bascombe, Bk 3 - Audio CD - Unabridged Author:Richard Ford, Joe Barrett (Narrator) Frank Bascombe's story resumes (after The Sportswriter and Independence Day), in the fall of 2000, with the presidential election still hanging in the balance and Thanksgiving looming before him with all the perils of a post-nuclear family get-together. He's now plying his trade as a realtor on the Jersey shore and cont... more »ending with health, marital and familial issues that have his full attention: "all the ways that life seems like life at age fifty-five strewn around me like poppies."
Audio Review:
If America shared one voice, it might sound like that of Joe Barrett, the reader of this involving, thoughtful audiobook. Barrett's voice captures both narrator Frank Bascombe's witty personality and the strong, curious, simultaneously optimistic and cynical tone of America as a nation. Listeners will easily fall in beside Frank as he faces Thanksgiving, both the holiday and the practice itself. Barrett's portrayal of Frank's encounters can be uproariously funny thanks to the reader's timing and vocal twists; the next minute, however, the listener could be pondering the larger meanings of life. Sometimes sweet and mournful, other times sardonic and raspy, Barrett's appealing performance of Ford's appealing novel feels like the voice of an entire country. -- AudioFile