About the book: 2014 / Frank Bascombe is happy with everything, he lives, avoiding life, leading a mediocre, almost invisible existence in the muted landscape of a leafy suburb of New Jersey. Frank Bascombe is an exemplary family man and a model citizen, but in reality he is a fugitive. He runs away all his life - from New York, from writing, from obligations, from feelings, from grief, from joy. He is spurred on by an incomprehensible, existential fear of life. A cute town, buried in the dense foliage of old trees; an enjoyable and respected job as a sports journalist; church bells ringing; an intelligent and understanding wife - and all this unspeakably oppresses Frank. Under the smooth surface of the idyll, the impending explosion twitches, filling with inevitability. Will it happen or will the tension dissolve, pacified by the surrounding peace of green lawns? The first novel in Richard Ford's trilogy about Frank Bascombe (the second, Independence Day, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Faulkner Prize) is an existential meditation, sad and tender, allowing one to ultimately see the very essence of life. Bascombe is filled with despair, which he narrates with barely restrained bitter humor. Richard Ford is an extraordinary novelist; none of our contemporaries can so subtly, accurately, piercingly describe everyday life, under which something alarming and inexpressible is hidden.