https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/27/sorry-for-your-trouble-richard-ford-review

An uneven collection about marital discord and middle-aged disappointment from one of the grand figures of contemporary American fiction

The final story in Richard Ford’s new collection is a tale of a marriage gone wrong – though something, we know, is salvaged from the wreckage. “Jonathan and Charlotte were divorced but had stayed friends,” “Second Language” begins. The marriage is a second attempt for both of them. Jonathan is a widower; Charlotte’s husband went off for a sailing trip and ended up making a new life without her. Confident Charlotte wasn’t too cut up; she meets Jonathan, who is pleasingly wealthy, when she’s selling him a fancy loft apartment.

The people in these stories seem imprisoned by a judgmental authorial voice