"From Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford: the final novel in the world of Frank Bascombe, one of the most indelible characters in American literature. Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive, and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway....

Payton is a young Black man with a chance to marry into the upper echelons of Black society. First, he must abandon a secret, an unborn child with an ex-girlfriend. He is in desperate need of money and time away from his fiancé, who knows nothing about the baby. He finds a solution in wealthy and stubborn Gregory Devereaux, an elderly regular from his favorite late-night diner. Hired by Devereaux's estranged daughter as his caretaker, Payton quickly...

Aside from a secret affair with a housewife (Mary Steenburgen), Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) spends his days stocking shelves at a grocery store, caring for his mentally handicapped brother (Leonardo DiCaprio), and holding together a large family headed by Mama, a former beauty queen whose weight tops 500 pounds. But just when Gilbert thinks nothing will ever change, a beautiful stranger (Juliette Lewis) arrives on the scene, capturing his heart. Nominated...