SOURCE: de Falbe, John. “Crafted with Too Much Care.” Spectator, no. 9039 (3 November 2001): 57-8.

In the following review of A Multitude of Sins, de Falbe finds that Ford's writing technique is stiff and overly crafted.

I am told that Richard Ford describes the stories in this long-awaited volume [A Multitude of Sins] as ‘little Valentines from hell’. The phrase is apt: a rough count yields four sour, damaging extra-marital affairs and five collapsing marriages, detailed with dour intensity. ‘Calling’ tells of an adolescent being taken on a duck shoot by his father, who recently abandoned his wife and law firm for an older man. The cast of ‘Creche’ consists of two kids and their frightful father, their maternal aunt and grandmother: they have gathered at Christmas for some Fordian cosiness in a Michigan ski resort while Mum, who absconded with Vince because of his big dick, is in rehab...