Independence Day
Six years have passed since failed family man Frank Bascombe, the narrator of Richard Ford’s 1986 novel THE SPORTSWRITER, was cut loose and cast adrift into a sea of suburban, middle-aged malaise. Now, in this long-awaited sequel, Bascombe has returned, a revenant reborn, his life significantly revised, to document a weekend excursion that constitutes a search for the true meaning of independence. What Frank Bascombe finds, however, is that he is still shackled to his past. Bascombe’s desire to set things right—to strike a balance, to stake down some sense of anchorage and permanence in a country that measures and defines freedom by how many miles from home a person strays—ultimately goes unfulfilled; it backfires, blows up in his face like a firecracker with a faulty wick.
Frank Bascombe has been hailed, by critics, as a “decent man,” a man who has been shellshocked by the shortcomings of a life shipwrecked by the unexpected: by death and divorce, against which he is left alone to defend. This aloneness, the everpresent threat of solitude, the fact that we are not in this together, is the one definition of independence that Frank Bascombe is able to accommodate. Not unlike Huck Finn, who lit out for territory in search for freedom, Bascombe negotiates his metal raft down congested rivers of concrete, co-navigated by his troubled teenage son, on a holiday pilgrimage to both the basketball and baseball Halls of Fame. It is a trip that, like the novel itself, never delivers on its promise. Perhaps this is because Ford’s gifts as a writer have spoiled longtime readers by encouraging them to hope for and expect only the best.
Bibliography
The Christian Science Monitor. July 3, 1995, p. 13. A review of Independence Day.
Commonweal. CXXII, October 6, 1995, p. 27. A review of Independence Day.
The Detroit Free Press. July 2, 1995, p. 5H. A review of Independence Day.
Ford, Richard. “The Art of Fiction CXLVII.” Paris Review 38, no. 140 (Fall, 1996). Lengthy interview in which Ford discusses the craft of writing and offers personal observations on all of his work.
Gray, Paul. “Return of the Sportswriter.” Time, June 19, 1995, 60.
Hardwick, Elizabeth. “Reckless People.” The New York Review of Books 42, no. 13 (August 10, 1995). Review essay of Independence Day that discusses Ford’s use of the first-person narrative in the context of his other fiction.
Hobson, Fred. The Southern Writer in the Postmodern World. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991. Contains the chapter “Richard Ford and Josephine Humphreys: Walker Percy in New Jersey and Charleston,” which provides a basic overview of Ford’s fiction.
Lee, Don. “About Richard Ford.” Ploughshares 22, no. 2-3 (Fall, 1996). Excellent overview of Ford’s work, written shortly after the publication of Independence Day.
London Review of Books. XVI, August 24, 1995, p. 23. A review of Independence Day.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. July 2, 1995, p. 1. A review of Independence Day.
The New York Times Book Review. C, June 18, 1995, p. 1. A review of Independence Day.
Newsweek. CXXV, June 12, 1995, p. 64. A review of Independence Day.
Publishers Weekly. CCXLII, April 24, 1995, p. 59. A review of Independence Day.
Schroth, Raymond A. “America’s Moral Landscape in the Fiction of Richard Ford.” Christian Century 106, no. 7 (March 1, 1989). A study of Ford’s writing as a commentary on contemporary American experience.
The Wall Street Journal. June 16, 1995, p. A12. A review of Independence Day.
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