The Lay of the Land Author:Richard Ford It is Thanksgiving week in the year 2000, as the contested presidential election drags on, and the boom years of the 90’s are beginning to turn a corner. Frank has been treated for prostate cancer, his second wife has unexpectedly left him for her first husband, and at the age of 55, he spends a lot of time thinking about all the things he... more » has never done -- from hiking the Appalachian Trail to learning German to sleeping with a movie star. He spends even more time thinking up strategies for coping -- ways to accommodate and negotiate the world without inflicting further damage on his already fragile sense of self.« less