Bascombe is a former real estate agent who is now retired. He lives in New Jersey, a few kilometers from the coast. In each of the four new, it must make a difficult encounter. In the first, he found a former client who wants to show his house destroyed by the hurricane. In the second, a black fifties request to visit the home of Bascombe, even where she spent her youth. She has a sad story to tell him. In the third, Bascombe visit his ex-wife. Now suffering from Parkinson's disease, she lives alone in a retirement home. In the fourth, he spent half an hour with a former fellow traveler. The latter is confined to bed because it has much longer to live.
Expert realism, Richard Ford gives us the strong impression that these meetings actually took place and leads us to reflect on the often very intimate thoughts of the narrator. On the other hand, to enjoy these four new, it is not necessary to have read the previous three novels. The neophyte reader will simply have the pleasure of feeling the past Bascombe is extremely rich.
