Good Hearts

Following up on Reynolds Price's first book A Long and Happy Life, Good Hearts shows the couple he had portrayed earlier as young adults in their middle age. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed by the novel, I had really, really enjoyed the earlier one and thought that Good Hearts was a bit too normal, too non-Southern, too average. Price's language moved away from the convoluted Southern writing I enjoy, its theme was much less Gothic and dark and far too suburban, modern American. 

This is a question of personal taste of course and as such I have nothing to reproach Price, I just wasn't expecting a novel on average Joe's mid-life crisis, with a happy ending, and a too good to believe moral approach. The redneck main character has some homosexual experience, the rapist really is a nice guy and the raped woman effectively forgives him. How credible is all that really? A quick read, not a bad one either, but nothing more than that.