The Sportswriter

Photo of the American novelist - Richard Ford Part of the Vintage Contemporaries Series, Richard Ford’s 1986 novel, The Sportswriter, is about a divorced 38-year old suburban New Jersey writer who lives out the American dream gone sour. In some ways the story reminded me of Camus’s The Stranger. What......more

After spending hours in Frank Bascombe’s head, I am still not sure what to make of him. This book revolves around an Easter weekend in his life, beginning with an annual visit to his son’s grave with his ex-wife (referred to as “X” throughout the novel) early in the morning of Good Friday. Many thin......more

Richard Ford - image from The Paris Review Frank Bascombe published a book once. He just never got around to writing another, veering off into the world of sportswriting. The Sportwriter shows us a week in Frank’s life in which he confronts the choices he has made as parts of his life are pared away......more

I tried reading Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter years ago, but I wasn’t ready. Now that I’ve lived a lot more life, I get it. Most of all, I get Ford’s Everyman hero, Frank Bascombe, a 38-year-old, divorced man with two kids (one has died), who works at a sports magazine after he gave up a promising......more