The predicament of the middle-aged American man who has not quite managed to live the American Dream is a common theme in American literature of the 20th-century. Think George Babbitt, Santiago and Harry Angstrom as the literary predecessors of this novel’s antihero, Tom Layward.

At the start of the novel, Tom, aged 55, is ruminating about his wife’s brief affair some twelve years before and linking that event with his daughter Myri leaving the family home to go to college. He has always considered that he might become a free agent at that point so, without telling anyone, he takes off on a road trip across America, meeting his brother, old friends and his son. Gradually, we unravel the story of his life and it’s not a good one! As he goes, he learns stuff about himself, particularly about how he is perceived by others, and begins to wonder about what really matters, before a crisis brings matters to a head.

As a plot that is fairly thin but the achievement of the novel is how a continuous first person narrative allows readers to see what Tom is blind to. Even if you find the geography and the description of hotels as boring as the unending driving, it’s compelling to see how Tom is sliding into meltdown, both physical and psychological.

Tom’s family are also well drawn. Amy, the wife, is both apparently eaten up by guilt and systematically marginalised by Tom. His children have, arguably, been damaged by the situation as well, and his relationship with family and brothers leaves a lot to be desired.

It’s worth saying that this is a very male book written from a male perspective and it’s understandable that some female readers might sympathise with Amy and think that Tom deserves all he gets – and that he should have got a hold of his life by about page 50 – and stopped wallowing in self-pity and petty spiteful revenge. He doesn’t of course!

It’s a great book in the sense of being eminently readable and self propelling. The sustained single voice is convincing as well but will that be enough to win the Booker Prize? It is possibly the most likely contender in the sense that it ticks a lot of the right boxes but, maybe, it is not quite in step with modern culture for foregrounding a grumpy male who, like the female protagonist in Miranda July’s novel, All Fours, seems oblivious to the damage he can inflict on others! It’s still a good read!