The Sportswriter

The magnificent novel that propelled Richard Ford into the first rank of American writersMy name is Frank Bascombe.

I am a sportswriter. It is Easter weekend and we are introduced for the first time to Frank Bascombe.

On the surface Frank’s life seems well set: he has a younger girlfriend and a job he adores as a sportswriter.

To many men his age, thirty-eight, this would be a cause for optimism, yet Frank feels the pull of longing and the memory of his recent losses – a career has ended,his wife has divorced him, and his elder son has died. In the course of Easter weekend, Frank will lose all the remnants of his familiar life, though he will emerge heroic with spirits aloft. ‘With a mastery second to none, Richard Ford has created a character we know as well as our next-door neighbours.

Frank Bascombe has earned himself a place beside Willy Loman and Harry Angstrom in our literary landscape’ NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW ‘Masterly ...

Moving ... This remarkable elegiac novel contemplates the desperate sadness of life with a profound, and humorous, dignity’ EVENING STANDARD ‘From first page to last, The Sportswriter is the work of a writer absolutely in control of his material ...

Ford has wrought a pitch-perfect thing of wonder ...

A brilliant elegiac novel’ NEWSDAY