Richard Ford (b.1944) is an American writer of novels and short stories about lonely and ‘damaged’ people. He is best known for his books featuring the character of Frank Bascombe, a former sportswriter turned real estate agent.
Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Ford attended Michigan State University, Washington University Law School, and the University of California-Irvine. He taught at several American colleges and universities.
After publishing the novels A Piece of My Heart (1976) and The Ultimate Good Luck (1981,) Ford worked as a sportswriter during the 1980s. His book about a middle-aged sportswriter named Frank Bascombe, The Sportswriter (1986,) made his name. The Bascombe trilogy included Independence Day (1995; Pulitzer) and The Lay of the Land (2006.) Bascombe’s senescence extended to the novellas in Let Me Be Frank with You (2014.)
Ford’s subsequent works include Wildlife (1990) and Canada (2012.) His collections of short stories are Rock Springs (1987,) Women with Men (1997,) A Multitude of Sins (2001,) and Sorry for Your Trouble (2020.)
Ford served as an editor for The Best American Short Stories of 1990 (1990) and The Granta Book of the American Short Story (1991, 2007.) His memoir is Between Them (2017.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Richard Ford
Married life requires shared mystery even when all the facts are known.
—Richard Ford
Topics: Marriage
Construed as turf, home just seems a provisional claim, a designation you make upon a place, not one it makes on you. A certain set of buildings, a glimpsed, smudged window-view across a schoolyard, a musty aroma sniffed behind a garage when you were a child, all of which come crowding in upon your latter-day senses—those are pungent things and vivid, even consoling. But to me they are also inert and nostalgic and unlikely to connect you to the real, to that essence art can sometimes achieve, which is permanence.
—Richard Ford
Topics: Home
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