Let Me Be Frank with You: A Frank Bascombe Book - Softcover

Ford, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061692077 ISBN 13: 9780061692079

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2015

Synopsis

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 this title

Review:

"Bascombe himself is still alive at the end of Let Me Be Frank With You. If he and we can defer the call of mortality, we can only hope to meet him again in 10 years' time."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Frank has reached his twilight years with his trademark wit and ruminative self-awareness intact, even if his body is starting to slide into geriatric betrayal...There's no doubt that this is the same old Frank.."Grade: B+--Entertainment Weekly

"Incredibly, Ford maintains, over 30 years, Frank's voice-he sounds much as he did when he was 38, except he is a little more prone to pontificating... This is what gripped readers on the first page of The Sportswriter...and what continues in Let Me Be Frank With You."--Chicago Tribune

"Of all the serial heroes bustling through postwar American fiction, Frank Bascombe makes the strongest claim on our affection... It is Mr. Ford's achievement to have made the musings of this suburban everyman captivating."--Wall Street Journal

"Funny, touching and profound... Threading its way through all four tales is Frank's (Ford's) sometimes chilling, always wry take on mortality... The ability of slight things to forestall reflection on the weightiest of issues is Ford's rich theme here, and no one mines it more eloquently."--Financial Times

"The beauty of this book lies in its encompassing humanity, its juxtaposition of gravity and wit, and the flawed duality of our protagonist... Ford illuminates parts of us all."--Portland Press Herald

"Frank is pushing 70 but he remains a fascinating emblem of his times... I admire Ford for bringing back Frank Bascombe as an old man and for creating a form and compressing a style to represent one late sexagenarian's circumstances and consciousness without succumbing to geezer sentimentality or contrived serenity."--Daily Beast

"Despite the sober subject matter, Frank is as bitingly funny as ever. His choice observations and the stories he tells reveal a man whose limitations and failings coexist with soaring attempts to make sense of a world undone by fate."--Shelf Awareness

"[Subtle] stories told with wit and grace... Ford has established himself as one of contemporary America's most interesting storytellers. Let Me be Frank with You does nothing to diminish this well-deserved reputation."--New York Journal of Books

"Now Frank has returned, ushering us through the four linked novellas in Let Me Be Frank With You - which arrives, like an early Christmas gift, to soothe fans who assumed they'd never again have the pleasure of wading through his stream of consciousness."--Washington Post

Book Description:

Richard Ford returns to the territory that sealed his reputation as a master: the world of Frank Bascombe

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0061692077
• ISBN 13: 9780061692079
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272