Welcome back, Frank.

For some of us the literary event of the year is likely to be the return of Frank Bascombe, the lead character in Richard Ford's first novel for a decade, The Lay of the Land. Frank first appeared in 1986 in The Sportswriter, in despair at the death of his son, with a broken marriage, he gradually finds the strength to pull himself back into the world. He next appeared in 1995 in Independence Day, Ford's Pulitzer prize winning novel where again events force him to break out of the defences he has built around his life. The Lay of the Land promises to take Frank forward into late middle age and, perhaps, some kind of redemption. Ford is on a booktour of the UK this week I believe.