A multitude of sins - Richard Ford

Commitment. Marriage. Responsibility. Boredom. Detachment. In his new collection of stories Richard Ford gives more attention to the Seventh Commandment than is given in any book since Madame Bovary. Malcontents all across North America - whether in a Montreal hotel lobby or on the crowded hall of Grand Central station - seek meaning and permanence beyond the desire that entrapped them in the first place. Ford's philanderers are as diverse as his geographies. On the ski slopes of Michigan, a white-trash ex-husband assaults his rich in-law. Outside New Orleans, a teenager goes duck-hunting with the father that abandoned his family the year before to live with another man. In suburban Connecticut, a young wife glibly confesses to her husband her one-night stand with the host of the party they are about to attend. In a Phoenix conference centre, two estate agents initiate a tryst that ends in tragedy. Only a storyteller as agile as Richard Ford could tackle so many situations offered by a theme as old as Love itself.