Thursday, February 25, 2010

Top 10 portrayals of working life in fiction

Aifric Campbell is the author of The Semantics of Murder and The Loss Adjustor.

For the Guardian, she named a top ten list of favorite jobs in fiction. One item on her list:
Estate agent
The Sportswriter / Independence Day / The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford

You will see your estate agent, or "realtor", in completely different light when you get to know Frank Bascombe who has "lived to face down regret". His young son dies, his early literary success evaporates, he gets divorced and observes New Jersey and the human condition with grace and humour, often from behind the wheel of his car. Viciously funny and incredibly moving, I have re-read my copy of The Sportswriter so many times that the pages are falling apart.
Read about the other books/jobs on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue