The Sportswriter - Softcover

Ford, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394743253 ISBN 13: 9780394743257

Publisher: Random House/Vintage Contemporaries, 1986

Synopsis

Fiction.

About this title

Review:

It's hard to imagine a book illuminating the texture of everyday life more brilliantly, or capturing the truth of human emotions more honestly, than Ford does in his account of an alienated scribe in the New Jersey suburbs. Frank Bascombe, Ford's protagonist, clings to his almost villainous despair in a way that Walker Percy's men don't, but the book is heavily influenced by Ford's fellow southerner nonetheless. Read this and you're ready for Ford's Pulitzer Prize-winning sequel, Independence Day.

From the Inside Flap:

As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people--men, mostly--who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at thirty-eight, he suffers from incurable dreaminess, occasional pounding of the heart, and the not-too-distant losses of a career, a son, and a marriage. In the course of the Easter week in which Ford's moving novel transpires, Bascombe will end up losing the remnants of his familiar life, though with his spirits soaring.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House/Vintage Contemporaries
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0394743253
• ISBN 13: 9780394743257
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 375