Frank Bascombe is scrupulously out of touch with himself. Devastated by the death of his young son, divorced now from his wife, he is tiptoeing his way through bereavement, using work—he's a magazine writer—to dislodge his grief, self-medicating with a strenuously pursued normalcy. In this beautifully calibrated book, he finds his way to something like peace, which is a different matter. Ford is masterful at describing hard-won and precarious emotional equilibriums of a kind you very well may recognize as your own. This book led to a no less brilliant sequel, Independence Day. As portraits of a man who has lingered in despair but who refuses in the end to remain there, they have no equal.—R.L.