Independence Day: Summary and book reviews of Independence Day by Richard Ford, plus links to an excerpt from Independence Day and a biography of Richard Ford.

Frank Bascombe is no longer a sportswriter, yet he's still living in Haddam, New Jersey, where he now sells real estate. He's still divorced, though his ex-wife, to his dismay, has remarried and moved along with their children to Connecticut. But Frank is happy enough in his work and pursuing various civic and entrepreneurial sidelines. He has high hopes for this 4th of July weekend: a search for a house for deeply hapless clients relocating to Vermont; a rendezvous on the Jersey shore with his girlfriend; then up to Connecticut to pick up his larcenous and emotionally troubled teenage son and visit as many sports halls of fame as they can fit into two days. Frank's Independence Day, however, turns out not as he'd planned, and this decent, appealingly bewildered, profoundly observant man is wrenched, gradually and inevitably, out of his private refuge. Independence Day captures the mystery of life — in all its conflicted glory — with grand humour, intense compassion and transfixing power.

Media Reviews

New York Times We have come to expect brilliant character sketches from Mr. Ford, and he doesn't disappoint us....With a mastery second to none, Richard Ford has created, and continues to develop in "Independence Day," a character we know as well as we know our next-door neighbors.   Publishers Weekly In this sequel to The Sportswriter, Ford follows his middle-aged American everyman, Frank Bascombe, through the transformative events of a Fourth of July weekend.   The Spectator - Francis King It is full of the kinds of phrases and even sentences that illuminate their subjects far more effectively than whole paragraphs, pages, or chapters by writers less gifted.

Recent Reader Reviews

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