The character of Fran Hardesty fills Wood's third novel to such a degree that all other characters exist in his shadow, most notably his son Dan who ends the novel unable to escape not just the memory of his father's brutal actions but the long-dead man himself, whose persona offers a rich and destructive cocktail combining rampant self-assurance with self-pity.
I've always found Wood's use of dialogue one of the most appealing facets of his writing and Fran offers a fascinating vehicle for this: one moment seducing a young folk singer, the next weaving a horrifyingly convincing rationale for those set to die at his hands. Yet bound up with the attributes of a an abusive character is the meticulous and careful craftsman and lover of the Cocteau Twins. An easier option, you feel, would to have Fran driving around to a soundtrack of classic rock and heavy metal: instead, he puts on Blue Bell Knoll and Treasure - enigmatic selections that, to the reader as well as to other characters, are part of his strange appeal.
In loving Fran's complexity in spite of myself and what I know of his brutality, I find myself negotiating the same difficult path as Dan, who somehow has to forge a future for himself away from his father's shadow, something both crucial and impossible. The scene where Dan is beaten and has his laptop stolen against the cacophony of free jazz in an East Village bar is a metaphor for the brutal chaos in which he is forced to exist, as is the way he later gets it back. If he can't escape his father's influence, you sense he would find it difficult to survive without it also. There's something of the world about Fran: taking him out of the world doesn't make its complexities go away.
A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better is a work dressed up as a dark thriller that really denies easy categorisation, much like Fran's character.
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