Schmidt, as he considers, worries, wonders, speculates, calculates, plans and reconsiders, is engaging company. He’s a frank, sometimes cranky widower, at times magnanimous and at others captious. Fully capable of glorying in his pleasures, he’s also stung by his weaknesses, sackcloth at the ready. One of the victories in this novel is how candid he is. Begley gets as close to Schmidt as a diarist, inhabiting this man who has been seasoned by a long life and yet somehow seems new this morning.