About the Book
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.
About the Author :
Richard Ford is the author of The Sportswriter; Independence Day, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award; The Lay of the Land; and the New York Times bestseller Canada. His short story collections include the bestseller Let Me Be Frank With You, Sorry for Your Trouble, Rock Springs and A Multitude of Sins, which contain many widely anthologized stories. He lives in New Orleans with his wife Kristina Ford.
Review :
"Ford is celebrated for his Frank Bascombe novels--stories swirling around the life of a middle-aged real estate agent. His profession lends itself to Ford's rich descriptions of natural land. Here, Ford places Bascombe in the wake of Hurricane Sandy." - Huffington Post, Best Books for Fall 2014
"For those of you who may have missed Frank Bascombe, Richard Ford's frequent protagonist, snag Let Me Be Frank With You, one of the surprises of the season by the MSU graduate and Pulitzer Prize winner who can be both funny and profound in the same sentence." - Lansing City Pulse
"It's altogether a joy to read, with Ford leavening the melancholy of loss (from age, and from the devastation of nature) with an ever-present humor." - Detroit News
"Regardless of its somewhat funereal context, Let Me Be Frank With You contains many moments of levity...This comic mockery tempers but does not overwhelm the book's essential seriousness...Frank must put his gently dogged optimism up against the fact of life's persistent sorrow, indignity, and misfortune." - Knoxville Times
"The four stories in Let Me Be Frank With You find Frank in autumnal but wry spirits... His observations remain gently cutting." - Dallas Morning News
"This beautifully written book explores human connections, at times politics, race and religion, and persists in trying to fathom our infinitely puzzling and fragmented selves. It's splendid." - Providence Journal
"Few characters in American literature have proven as durable or as interesting as Richard Ford's long-running hero, Frank Bascombe... [Frank's] insights are as trenchant as ever, but he seems funnier, looser, kinder somehow." - Baton Rouge Advocate
"In the conversational and highly digressive voice that's become so familiar to readers over the years, Frank-aged 68, now comfortably retired and living in upscale Haddam, New Jersey-takes each day as it comes, and still finds plenty to remark upon." - Highbrow Magazine
"Frank Bascombe, who made his first appearance in The Sportswriter in 1986, returns in his fourth novel, and there are abundant reasons to be grateful." - San Francisco Chronicle, Best of 2014: 100 Recommended Books
"Mortality and the wounded human condition underscore this novel about the legacy of Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey in 2012. Beautifully written, nuanced and perceptive. Frank Bascombe's 68 and contemplating his usefulness and fate in the wreckage that surrounds him." - Providence Journal
"In four linked stories, Ford's aging Everyman surveys life after Hurricane Sandy batters New -Jersey." - New York Times Book Review, Notable Book
"Told as a collection of longer short stories, Bascombe is grumpy, existential and searching for comfort amid a host of physical and mental maladies... if you're an established fan of the Bascombe tales, it'll surely be something to add to the Christmas vacation reading list." - KQED (NPR SF), The Do List
"After a trilogy of Frank Bascombe novels spanning nearly 30 years, this latest book is four linked narratives. Now 68, Bascombe assesses his losses, including the Jersey Shore damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Best Books of 2014
"Bascombe again is portrayed as a thoughtful, ruminative man, now retired from the real-estate business. In the four novellas... the character not only confronts, but embraces his mortality in 'anticipation of the final, thrilling dips of the roller coaster.'" - Pittsburg Tribune-Review
"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." - Jackson Free Press
