A PERFECT DAY, by Richard Paul Evans, Dutton, 273 pages, $22.95.
After a decade of experience writing fiction, Richard Paul Evans has improved since the amateurish but best-selling "The Christmas Box." The awkwardness of sentence construction is gone.
In "A Perfect Day," he tells a simple, almost mundane story, mostly autobiographical in nature, about Robert Harlan, a very ordinary sales representative for a small radio station in Salt Lake City, who has always wanted to be a writer.
When he unexpectedly loses his job, Robert's overly devoted wife, Allyson, volunteers to go back to work at Nordstrom while he stays home and writes his book full-time. He quickly writes a sentimental story based on Allyson's last few months together with her father when he was dying of cancer.
Like Evans when he wrote his first book, no one is interested in Robert's work. He is rejected by every agent but one — an amiable woman who says she loves the book and wants to place it with a publisher. Robert's lucky day has come.
Although the book gains popularity slowly, it finally takes off, and he is swamped with invitations to speak in the midst of a seemingly endless book tour. After several weeks away from home, he loses his sense of values and Allyson believes she is losing both him and the life she loves with their family.
Meanwhile, Robert is floating on the fleeting fame of the world. The family starts to seem like an intrusion on his exciting new life. When Allyson confronts him with the problem, he plays the role of the typically egocentric successful male and leaves her. His new home while in Salt Lake City becomes the Hotel Monaco.
Enter a mysterious stranger who confronts Robert in Starbucks. He tells Robert more about himself than seems possible for anyone to know. But the scariest part is the suggestion that Robert ought to make things right with his family because he doesn't have long to live.
Although puzzled by the stranger's advice, Robert becomes predictably introspective as he tries to figure out how to atone for his sins.
What is conspicuously lacking here is characterization to flesh out a thin plot. Robert and Allyson never become fully developed and compelling. Although mostly predictable, the story takes a couple of surprising turns toward the end, thus making it slightly more palatable. But "A Perfect Day," filled with simplistic and superficial dialogue, seems very long and tedious most of the time.
The inside references to Salt Lake City come off as odd. Robert's playful decision to take Allyson on a brisk carriage ride around the city while nestled under a blanket seems anti-climactic for a now-famous author. And the "fabulous lunch" they have before the carriage ride — "turkey pot pies with thick white gravy and large chunks of white meat" makes one a little queasy. And the chapters are so short as to present the story in a highly fragmented way — little slices of ordinary problems.
Anyone who has read an Evans novel knows that the ending will be happy — but it takes a long time to get there.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com