Thus. Nov. 16

 Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe, a sportswriter who becomes a real estate agent, didn't know John Updike's Rabbit, but he should have. They could have both raised a weary toast to middle age ennui. Ford has penned his third Bascombe novel "Lay of the Land," long after the second, "Independence Day" (1995) and "The Sportwriter" (1986). Here, the time is 2000, Thanksgiving week, and Frank's second wife has split, he's been treated for prostate cancer and, at 55, thinking of all the things gone by and the things left undone. He feels less a participant in life than an observer, and worries about death. "Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death," is how Pink Floyd put in in "Time" back in "Dark Side of the Moon." (They were young-ish and they knew.) Frank's got a lot of self-doubt, spends a lot of time drowning his sorrows. Do you care about Frank? Did you care about Rabbit? Flawed characters, self-obsessed, maybe - but brilliantly constructed. And if some of Frank's tics don't ding a bell in you, I'd be surprised whatever your age. (When I was younger, and heard the phrase "middle-age crisis," I'd snort and say, "How about constant-life crisis?") Join Ford for a reading at the Coolidge Corner Cinema Thursday. Nov. 16 at 6 p.m. Get $2 tickets across the road at the sponsoring Brookline Booksmith.
290 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-566-6660