Let me be Frank with you : a Frank Bascombe book

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Title:

Let me be Frank with you : a Frank Bascombe book

Author:

Ford, Richard, 1944- author.

Series:

Frank Bascombe ;

Series Number:

Summary:

Here, in Let Me Be Frank with You, Ford returns with four deftly linked stories narrated by the iconic Bascombe. Now 68, and again ensconced in the well-defended New Jersey suburb of Haddam, Bascombe has thrived - seemingly if not utterly - in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy's devastation. As in all of the Bascombe books, Ford's guiding spirit is the old comic's maxim that promises if nothing's funny, nothing's truly serious. The desolation of Sandy, which rendered houses, shorelines, and countless lives unmoored and flattened, could scarcely be more serious as the grist for fiction. Yet it is the perfect backdrop and touchstone for Ford - and Bascombe. With a flawless comedic sensibility and unblinking intelligence, these stories range over the full complement of American subjects: aging, race, loss, faith, marriage, redemption, the real-estate crash - the tumult of the world we live in." -- Amazon.com.

General Note:

Sequel to: The lay of the land.

Edition:

First edition.

Contents:

I'm here -- Everything could be worse -- The new normal -- Deaths of others.

Physical Description:

240 pages ; 24 cm.

Genre:

Psychological fiction.

Subject Term:

Divorced men -- Fiction.

Middle-aged men -- Fiction.

Hurricanes -- Fiction.

Hurricane Sandy, 2012 -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

New Jersey -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers,

Electronic Access:

Contributor biographical information

Publication Date:

2014

ISBN:

9780061692062

Publication Information:

New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2014]

Call Number:

FORD

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003138024	Adult Fiction	FORD Richard	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

A brilliant new work that returns Richard Ford to the hallowed territory that sealed his reputation as an American master: the world of Frank Bascombe, and the landscape of his celebrated novels The Sportswriter, the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner winning Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land.

In his trio of world-acclaimed novels portraying the life of an entire American generation, Richard Ford has imagined one of the most indelible and widely discussed characters in modern literature, Frank Bascombe. Through Bascombe--protean, funny, profane, wise, often inappropriate--we've witnessed the aspirations, sorrows, longings, achievements and failings of an American life in the twilight of the twentieth century.

Now, in Let Me Be Frank with You, Ford reinvents Bascombe in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In four richly luminous narratives, Bascombe (and Ford) attempts to reconcile, interpret and console a world undone by calamity. It is a moving and wondrous and extremely funny odyssey through the America we live in at this moment. Ford is here again working with the maturity and brilliance of a writer at the absolute height of his powers.

Author Notes

He was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1944 & grew up there & in Little Rock, Arkansas. He graduated from Michigan State University & received an M. F. A. in 1970 from the University of California at Irvine. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts & American Academy of Arts & Letters Award for Literature. He was also given the 1994 Rea Award. In 2001 he was awarded the PEN/Malamud prize. He made The New York Times Best Seller List for his title's Canada and Let Me Be Frank with You. He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with his title, Let Me Be Frank With You.

(Publisher Provided)

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land, continues to reflect on the meaning of existence in these four absorbing, funny, and often profound novellas. The collection is set in New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, in the weeks leading up to Christmas 2012. Frank considers the evanescence of life as he travels to the site of his former home on the shore; has an unsettling experience with a black woman whose family once lived in his present home in fictional Haddam; visits his prickly ex-wife, who is suffering from Parkinson's, in an extended-care institution; and meets a dying former friend. At 68, Frank feels "old"¿; his bout with prostate cancer has convinced him that he's in the "Default Period of life."¿ Intimations of mortality ("the bad closing in"¿) permeate his musings, recounted in an unadorned, profane, vernacular that conveys his witty, cynical voice. Frank's cranky comments and free-flowing meditations about current social and political events are slyly juxtaposed with references to Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Trollope, Emerson, Milton, and others. Despite Frank's dyspeptic outlook, Ford packs in a surprising amount of affirmation and redemption. Readers who met Frank in Ford's earlier novels will quickly reconnect with his indelible personality. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Review

Starred Review. Ford returns to his best-known character, Frank Bascombe, first introduced in The Sportswriter, in four linked novellas that explore the state of Frank's life and that of the larger world in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Set on the Jersey Shore just before Christmas 2012, these stories find Frank, now 68 and retired from the real estate business, ruminating on age, loss, and the sense of decline he feels in himself and in the world. "I'm Here," for instance, reflects on loss and resilience as Frank visits his former beach home, destroyed by the hurricane, in the company of its present owner. In "The New Normal," Frank brings a small gift (an orthopedic pillow) to his ex-wife, Ann, who is recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, at the continuing care facility in the town where she currently resides. The idea of a new, diminished normal pervades these deeply elegiac tales. Like John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom, Frank is a barometer of his times, and the times, as Ford sees them, are not good-as if Hurricane Sandy had blown back the curtains of everyday life to reveal truths about the ravages of aging, social decline, and climate change. VERDICT A notable addition-and perhaps coda-to Ford's "Frank Bascombe" trilogy; highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 5/12/14.]-Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.