Independence Day

Independence Day

by Richard Ford

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 1996

       Richard Ford's sequel to The Sportswriter picks up Frank Bascombe's life about five years later. Whenever a writer takes on a sequel as opposed to creating a completely new world and characters to inhabit it, I have to wonder what the writer is trying to say, or if the writer felt like the first story was not complete.  An obvious question about a book like this is: Do I have to read the first one to understand this? In this case, the answer is no. There are references to the events of the first novel, but those references are vague and not necessary to understand the events of this novel. What remains constant is the sort of lazy way that the plot unfolds.

       In this novel it is Independence Day weekend, 1988. A substantial amount of time is dedicated to the discussion of the upcoming Bush/Dukakis showdown, a decision that apparently was supposed to reveal characters' core values. Considering how that particular election was sort of a blowout, and Frank is decidedly in the Dukakis column, I have to wonder what Ford's view of America is. Frank has left sports reporting behind, and has moved on to become a real estate agent. Having just purchased a house, I have to say I would not have wanted Frank as my agent, and I don't know where he finds clients like the ones he deals with, but suffice to say the sequences that show Frank at work were rather stressful. I am going to do some rather extemporaneous analysis of Frank's career switch, like jazz. A home is a metaphor for a life, and Frank is acting as an agent of transition and redefinition...much like the American Declaration of Independence.
          Frank is, again, deeply into a relationship that seems like it could go one way or another. This time he is seeing a woman who used to be married to a classmate of his who went crazy in Vietnam and abandoned her upon returning to the US. After a decade has passed she is with Frank and contemplating redefining herself as the former Mrs. So and So and become the new Mrs. Frank Bascombe. Frank would like to become the new husband of this woman, while at the same time he can't let go of his old wife. Here she has a name. Ann. Not X. It is a wonderful promotion. Ann is remarried now, and has moved away from the small town where they lived as a couple and spent the first few years of their divorce. Frank is not completely ready to let go. He has purchased her old home, and is living in it, an obvious signal to the reader that in order to give his new relationship a chance, he has some work to do. And again, we look at that jazzy ole metaphor for the home as a life.

      Oh, and their surviving son, Paul, has apparently lost his marbles. Frank has decided to take Paul on a trip to the Baseball and Basketball Halls of Fame for some father/son time, but just prior to this Paul has attacked his new stepfather with an oar, stolen the family car, and wrecked it. Their time together seems to be what the action of the novel will deal with, but Richard Ford is, again, glacially slow here, and the novel is well into the second half before the two characters get together. Which was fine with me. Paul was among the more annoying characters I've read in awhile. I wouldn't go so far as say he was literary birth control, but he was hardly sympathetic.

      I do not have wonderful things to say about this book. It was exceedingly competent, and had some very moving and poignant moments, but was in some ways rather exhausting. While I admire Richard Ford's extreme attention to the train of thought of Frank Bascombe, the thematic elements of the novel were not very subtle. I mentioned when I wrote up The Sportswriter that these books make up a trilogy. The third book was not listed as a Time top 100, nor is it a Pulitzer winner so I don't have to read it to cross it off my list. That doesn't mean I'll never read it, but without making myself duty-bound I don't know if I will ever be tempted. The only thing that I think would push me to read it is the fact that I have read the first two books, and I hate leaving things off lists of any sort uncrossed. Yeah, I probably will read it. 

Coming soon:  Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser.