Okay, here are some more of my musings on fiction. It is probably
misdirected since your stated lack of interest. So, please excuse me.

I have finished listening to "Independence Day" by Richard Ford in the
car and on the run. The novel got the Pulitzer and a couple of other
awards in 1996 when it came out.

The novel is long, does not have that much action, as it covers about
four days of the protagonist, Frank Bascombe, before and on the
Independence Day of 1988. However, it moves at a steady
pace. Listening to it while commuting had a regular TV series effect:
it felt like I was spending time with familiar characters day in and
day out.

Frank Bascombe, as is the author, was born in the South, grew up in
Michigan,  worked as a sports newspaper writer and dabbled in
literature on the eastcoast. His first wife divorced him, he then quit
his job and sort-of floated back and forth between continents and
in-and-out of different professions. Presently, he settled in
real-estate sales, a profession he somewhat enjoys, even though a lot
of people, including his ex-family, consider him a failure. His
divorce and feelings for his ex-wife are still raw, even after a
number of years. He misses his children, sees them grow apart from him
and slip away. He had a tragic interracial romance an, after
everything, is wary of commitment. In short there is a lot to relate
to.

Frank is affable, professionally courteous, bland with his customers
and other people he comes in contact with. Yet, in his continuous
internal narrative, he produces sharp, precise, often less than
flattering observations about these people. That was a bit scary. One
would wonder if _I_ ever met somebody like that and never noticed.

Frank is a modern-day Moses Herzog (of Bellow's "Herzog"), only
significantly less self-absorbed and shallow, and thus a lot more
sympathetic. Also, his constant inner monologue and his slight
disengagement from even his own day-to-day events sound Hemingwayan.

These multiple levels of analysis and communication make the scenes of
his interaction with the customers amusing: from the facial and verbal
clues of his customers, Frank tries to analyze the mental state of his
customers; and, with his spare comments, tries to move them towards
the sale; all this while trying to help the customers while these
customers are sometimes less than helpful.

This multi-level narrative becomes especially artful when Frank talks
to his girlfriend, praises her wonderfully cooked dinner, meanwhile
realizing that she is expecting some further sincerity and frankness
from him. He deflects this expectation, half-consciously
half-instinctively. He is sorry he does that. The deflection is in
part carefully worded and in part clumsy. Moreover, to a degree Frank,
himself does not realize what is happening. This last level is left
for the reader to find and appreciate. All this is happening as the
first-level communication is still ongoing.

Another memorable scene is a phonetalk with his ex-wife. Both of them
have feelings for each other, but the conversation turns into a fight
where his ex, knowing that he was a writer, accuses him of treating
her like a character in his book, even writing her lines for her, this
phone conversation included.

Certain things are still mildly irritating about Frank's
character. The novel is set at the time of 1988 presidential
elections. Frank professes to be a a democrat and a progressive,
considers Dukakis to be a bumbler yet could not name, and not even
seem to care which military engagement the US was then involved
in. His jealousy towards boyfriends and husbands of his ex-es is
petty. On the other hand, these qualities possibly make him human.

Frank loses some of the reader's sympathy about mid-way when, in the
scope of about half-a-day, he claims his love to his ex-wife, his
girlfriend and then nearly jumps in bed with a chance-encounter
waitress. Worse yet, he picks up the waitress because he is hungry and
he does not do the deed, not because he conscientiously decides to be
true to whatever feelings he has, but because his mood has changed.

Frank, as no doubt the author, is a leg-man. The thighs, knees and
ankles of major female characters all get a description. This includes
a doctor at the hospital where Frank brought his severely injured son
and where, you would think, women's legs would not be the focus of
Frank's attention.

The book's treatment of race is a bit grating. Frank uses racial
labels nonchalantly. I think it might be that the book is
somewhat dated and american society has come a long way since
mid-nineties of the last century.

Frank's idea of parenting is broadcasting platitudes at his alienated
15-year-old son. Yet somehow this, by his own admission, mixture of
love, hatred and frustration that he feels sounds endearing. 

Anyhow, like Junot Diaz and Jumpa Lahiri's is a retelling of immigrant
American experience, Richard Ford's "Independence Day" is an artful
reflection of East Coast Americana.