Be Mine
A Frank Bascombe Novel

Since Richard Ford created him almost 40 years ago, Frank Bascombe has become his literary alter ego, in the same vein as Roth's Zuckerman or Updike's Rabbit. And as with Larry McMurtry's Duane Moore, what started out as a standalone novel has expanded into several sequels as Ford has found more and......more

Death, Not Yours A few years ago, I picked up a copy of “The Sportswriter” by Richard Ford and before I read it, I ordered a copy of his Pulitzer Prize winning “Independence Day.” Once I got into “The Sportswriter,” though, I realized it did not interest me at all. The ramblings of a middle-aged man......more

This was a donation to my Little Free Library Shed. And… Apparently, this is a series, a Frank Bascombe series. And… This is the last one. I haven’t read the first four in the series, so I was at a disadvantage to understand Frank’s previous world. Especially, learning that the author's book in the se......more

Rating: 3.75 This was the second book I've read by this author, and while more engaging, his long winded approach to storytelling, isn't the sort I gravitate towards. Ford obviously has stream of consciousness 'episodes' while writing of which some are of interest, but not all. Frank Backcomb has had......more

As one of the blurbs on the back of "Be Mine" states, "You don't read the Bascombe books for plot. You read them for Ford's gleaming sentences". A truer statement may never have been written, for Be Mine is chock full of gleaming sentences but is essentially plotless. That's not as bad as it sounds,......more