Let Me Be Frank with You

August 18, 2014
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.

September 1, 2014
The novelist returns with his favorite protagonist for a coda that is both fitting and timely. Ford made his critical and popular breakthrough by introducing Frank Bascombe in The Sportswriter (1986) and then continued his progression with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day (1995) and the epic The Lay of the Land (2006). In comparison to the other volumes in what had been known as "The Bascombe Trilogy"-and to Ford's most recent novel, the masterful Canada (2012)-this is a short, formalistic work. Each of its four chapters could stand as a story on its own, featuring Frank's meditations on odd encounters with someone from his past, now that he has settled into the detachment of retirement from the real estate racket. "[W]hat I mostly want to do is nothing I don't want to do," he explains, though he somehow finds himself commiserating with the guy who bought his house, destroyed by the recent Hurricane Sandy; the wife who became his ex three decades ago; and a former friend who is on his deathbed. While President Barack Obama, the hurricane and the bursting of the real estate bubble provide narrative signposts, not much really happens with Frank, which suits Frank just fine. He finds himself facing the mortal inevitability by paring down-ridding himself of friends, complications, words that have become meaningless. As he says, "I'd say it's a simple, good-willed, fair-minded streamlining of life in anticipation of the final, thrilling dips of the roller-coaster." Until then, what he experiences is "life as teeming and befuddling, followed by the end." Over the course of his encounters, there are a couple of revelations that might disturb a man who felt more, but plot is secondary here to Frank's voice, which remains at a reflective remove from whatever others are experiencing.Another Bascombe novel would be a surprise, but so is this-a welcome one.

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Starred review from October 1, 2014
This cleverly titled set of four novellas narrated by Ford's signature character, Frank Bascombe, is caustically hilarious, warmly philosophical, and emotionally lush. After appearing in three novelsThe Sportswriter (1986), Independence Day (1995), and The Lay of the Land (2006)Frank is 68, retired from selling real estate, contentedly married to his compassionate if brusque second wife, and wryly cognizant of the expected shackles and surprising liberations of age. But his tenuous equanimity is put to the test in the disorienting aftermath of Hurricane Sandy during intense and unforeseen encounters, each associated with a residence bristling with memories. Frank meets an old friend at the Jersey shore, where the storm destroyed the beach house Frank sold him. A woman who grew up in Frank's house returns to see it for the first time, revealing its horrific history. Frank dutifully visits his ex-wife in a state-of-the-art staged-care facility and makes another reluctant pilgrimage to see a dying friend in the hideously overdecorated mansion he sold him long ago. In each neatly linked tale, Frank ruminates misanthropically, wittily, and wisely about love, family, friendship, race, politics, and the mystery of the self. Can he truly be Frank with others? Can he be honest? LikeFrank, Ford, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence for Canada (2013), certainly is incisively frank, forensically observant, and covertly tender. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The word is out: Frank is back, and best-selling Ford will be touring the country backed by a muscular multimedia and online campaign.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2014

You already know Frank Bascombe as the protagonist of Ford's The Sportswriter, Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award-winning Independence Day, and National Book Critics Circle finalist The Lay of the Land. Now, after an eight-year hiatus, Frank is back, once again summing up an important American moment by wrestling with the displacement caused by Hurricane Sandy. With an eight-city tour and a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2014

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

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2014

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

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.