Richard Ford returns to familiar ground in new novel Canada.

"Life's passed along to us empty. We have to make up the happiness part," says Florence la Blanc, painter and friend of Arthur Remlinger, and his absolute opposite in her demeanour towards Dell. Florence's words say in a nutshell what Dell reflects upon when he thinks back upon his life and the events that had such a long lasting impact. Of course this can often be easier said than done, and in the hands of many other writers Dell's musings could have resulted in a novel full of trite little philosophies, but Ford is too gifted a writer to let that happen.

Just like in Wildlife, Ford clearly set out to write a story that brings something positive out of all the misery. As he said in an interview in 1990: "Bad things happen to everybody. We don't get out of it. And the real important, the real interesting optimistic side of all bad things, is what we do in consequence of them." I was reminded of these words when I read Dell saying in Canada:

It's been my habit of mind, over these years, to understand that every situation in which human beings are involved can be turned on its head. Everything someone assures me to be true might not be. Every pillar of belief the world rests on may or may not be about to explode. Most things don't stay the way they are very long. Knowing this, however, has not made me cynical. Cynical means believing that good isn't possible; and I know for a fact that good is. I simply take nothing for granted and try to be ready for the change that's soon to come.

"It is the fiction writer's duty to put into words what people can't always express for themselves", Ford said in another early interview. With Canada he proves once more that he is the perfect literary craftsman who makes the reader believe his characters all the way.