Richard Ford has become famous for his series of books about Frank Bascombe, the ex-novelist who doubted his calling and became a sportswriter. This is the first book where he appears, published an even 35 years ago this year.
The events take place during Easter weekend. Bascombe has divorced his wife, and the book opens when he meets her by the gravestone of their deceased young son. After his son died, his marriage fell apart, and with that the rest of his life, too. He is living in a self-professed state of ”dreaminess” and he now makes his livelihood being a traveling sports reporter. He has a girlfriend he’s not particularly fond of, and he has recently spent a lot of time with a “divorced men’s club”.
The events of the novel are all related to these facts, as we get to tag along on a sportswriting assignment, a trip to the girlfriend’s father, a late night visit from a member of the divorce club. All the while Bascombe dips in and out of his memories and thinks back om his time doing this and that. He recalls the time he taught college and phones his then-girlfriend. The book oozes of a kind of masculine weariness… Bascombe’s voice has a certain tone which makes most anything he says sound profound and interesting, even though it on closer inspection might not really be. That takes some kind of talent to do as a writer. Ford has also imbued the book with Southern sensibilities, although it is set in New Jersey.
The book reminds me of Walker Percy‘s the Moviegoer – they have even chosen the same kind of title. Both books are filled with a lot of ruminations, and both books are written from a somewhat Southern outlook. I found out later that Ford had been particularly inspired by Percy’s book (which also is centered around a dead family member). Ford is considered a conceptual member of a group of writers whose work deals a lot with middle class suburbia, with authors like John Cheever, John O’Hara and John Updike. I haven’t read anything of their work, it doesn’t feel relevant to me. After having read this, I might consider reading Updike in the future. Maybe.
One reviewer identified kierkegaardian qualities in this book, and argued that it was part of a triptych of American kierkegaardian novels, the other two being the aforementioned Moviegoer and Run Rabbit by Updike. I don’t know what to make of that… but I liked the “dreaminess” of the book.
Kinship of all Species 