The first novel of Richard Ford’s trilogy about Frank Bascombe (the second, “Independence Day,” won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Faulkner Award) is an existential meditation—sad and tender—that ultimately allows you to see the very essence of life. Bascombe, this unremarkable anti-hero, is overflowing with despair, which he narrates with barely contained bitter humor. Richard Ford is an extraordinary novelist: no one among our contemporaries can describe everyday life so subtly, so precisely, so piercingly—under which something troubling and inexpressible hides.