Is it truth or fiction? Memoir or essay? Narrative or associative? To a writer like Michael Martone, questions like these are high praise. Martones studied disregard of form and his unruffled embrace of the prospect that nothingno story, no lifeis ever quite finished have yielded some of todays most splendidly unconventional writing. Add to that an utter weakness for pop Americana and what Louise Erdrich has called a deep affection for the ordinary, and you have one of the few writers who could pull off something like Racing in Place.