The most important things of your life can change so suddenly, so unrecoverably, that you can forget even the most important of them and their connections, you are so taken up by the chanciness of all that's happened and by all that could and will happen next. I now no longer remember the exact year of my father’s birth, or how old he was when I last saw him, or even when that last time took place. When you’re young, these things seem unforgettable and at the heart of everything. But they slide away and are gone when you are not so young.
This is a quote that certainly seems like it would be the final paragraph in the story, but here’s the kicker: there’s still a full three and a half pages to go after this. It is a strange choice. Why place what seems obviously to be a summing denouement almost four pages from the actual ending? Especially when the actual final paragraph is much more ambiguous and lacking in philosophical musing. And also especially when this particular paragraph can be taken out of context and applied to any number of other stories written by the author? Well, that is probably the answer right there. It cuts a little too close to the thematic bone of the author’s entire body of work. To end this particular story with this particular quote applies it a little too specifically and precise to just this particular story. Besides, Ford notoriously prefers drawing stories to a close on a note of lesser reflection.
And I wondered, because it seemed funny, what would you think a man was doing if you saw him in the middle of the night looking in the windows of cars in the parking lot of the Ramada Inn? Would you think he was trying to get ready for a day when trouble would come down on him? Would you think his girlfriend was leaving him? Would you think he had a daughter? Would you think he was anybody like you?
Now here’s a concluding paragraph! Still lacking the philosophical reflection of the above example, but t least Earl’s final commentary has the feeling of philosophy. The rhetoric is misdirected, of course, since by this point we already know the man peeking through windows is, in fact, Earl and, what’s more, we know why he is peeking. But, again, that’s the point. Ford’s stories are filled with guys like Earl doing things like peeking into windows of cars parked at the local Ramada and we know the reasons they are doing those things. But America is also filled with guys like Earl doing things like that and not only do we not know why they are doing them, most of the time we don’t care.
On the drive over to the Nicholsons’ for dinner—their first in some time—Marjorie Reeves told her husband, Steven Reeves, that she had had an affair with the George Nicholson (their host) a year ago, but that it was all over with now and she hoped he—Steven—would not be made about it and could go on with life.
“Under the Radar” appears in a collection that overflows with stories of unhappy marriages, adultery, affairs, infidelities and hopelessly optimistic women depending on the better angels of men driven by their demons. But, then again, that describes almost all the stories of Ford featuring married couples. Let’s put things like this: the institution of marriage does not come off as a romanticized ideal in the fiction of Ford. One might imagine that he is one of those writers bitter about paying alimony to a string of ex-wives, but the bulk of his fiction coincides with one single long-term marriage. Where the bitter view of married life comes up is therefore a matter best left to psychologists; the intrepid reader merely needs to place this lack of domestic contentment within the context of the fiction itself. Just beware: there is an abundance of context.
