Independence DayFrank Bascombe is no longer a sportswriter, yet he's still living in Haddam, New Jersey, where he now sells real estate. He's still divorced, though his ex-wife, to his dismay, has remarried and moved along with their children to Connecticut. But Frank is happy enough in his work and pursuing various civic and entrepreneurial sidelines. He has high hopes for this 4th of July weekend: a search for a house for deeply hapless clients relocating to Vermont; a rendezvous on the Jersey shore with his girlfriend; then up to Connecticut to pick up his larcenous and emotionally troubled teenage son and visit as many sports halls of fame as they can fit into two days. Frank's Independence Day, however, turns out not as he'd planned, and this decent, appealingly bewildered, profoundly observant man is wrenched, gradually and inevitably, out of his private refuge. Independence Day captures the mystery of life — in all its conflicted glory — with grand humour, intense compassion and transfixing power. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - lauralkeet - LibraryThingIndependence Day is the second of Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe novels, set several years after The Sportswriter. Frank is now working in real estate and has come to terms with his status as a ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - jimnicol - LibraryThingDon't know of another writer who could keep me interested in 400 pages of internal dialogue...but Richard Ford manages by some magic to make the whole world come alive through Frank Bascombe's senses and thoughts... Read full review
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