The third book in the trilogy by Richard Russo. Ten years after the death of the magnetic Donald "Sully" Sullivan, the town of North Bath is going through a major transition as it is annexed by its much wealthier neighbor, Schuyler Springs. Peter, Sully's son, is still grappling with his father's tremendous legacy as well as his relationship to his own son, Thomas, wondering if he has been all that different a father than Sully was to him. Meanwhile, the towns' newly consolidated police department falls into the hands of Charice Bond, after the resignation of Doug Raymer, the former North Bath police chief and Charice's ex-lover. When a decomposing body turns up in the abandoned hotel situated between the two towns, Charice and Raymer are drawn together again and forced to address their complicated attraction to one another.
Sumptuous, spirited ... There are scattered potholes in Russo’s plot, which he patches with back story ... Some chapters feel burdened with detail, and a few flashbacks are confusing, with scenes planted uneasily within scenes. And yet these characters’ interlocking fates move confidently toward resolution ... In Russo’s hands these intentions — and the expectations and forgiveness of others — are fine brushes and a palette. He paints a shining fresco of a working-class community, warts and all.
This is optimism in print. Russo has become our national priest of masculine despair and redemption. The gruff grace that he traffics in might seem sentimental next to the merciless interrogation of John Updike’s Rabbit series or the philosophical musings of Richard Ford’s novels about Frank Bascombe. But Russo understands the appeal, even the necessity, of those absurd affections that exceed all reason and make the travails of human life endurable ... If you haven’t read the previous two novels, you’re likely to feel as though you’re tagging along to your spouse’s college reunion. In trilogies, as in life, you had to be there ... Russo’s bequest to us ... The list of folks we need to look after is never finished; if we’re living right, it keeps growing.
Like its predecessors, this book lands as an authentic, ambivalent ode to America's small towns — where, like everywhere else, progress occurs at a fitful pace.
