THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 30, 1995 TAG: 9507270597
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY MICHAEL PEARSON
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
INDEPENDENCE DAY
RICHARD FORD
Alfred A. Knopf. 451 pp. $24.
AT ONE POINT toward the conclusion of Richard Ford's new novel, the main character, Frank Bascombe, contemplating the death of his first son, tries to decide on an appropriate place to be buried when his time comes. To live without being haunted by his son's death, he decides that it would be best to choose a place as far as practical from his home in Haddam, N.J. He wants a peaceful spot, little traffic, ``minimum earthly history and where anyone who comes to visit will do so just because he or she means to (nothing on the way to Six Flags or Glacier) . . . ''
The thought of eventually being buried in Haddam, near his son, would paralyze him. As he says, it would be worse than having tenure at Princeton. He determines that Cut Off, La., would be his first choice, and that seems fitting to me, for it is as close to home as possible - back in the South, Bascombe's home and Ford's too. More significantly, perhaps, the town sounds like a cousin to Shut Off, La., an important place in Will Barrett's journeys in Walker Percy's The Last Gentleman. And Richard Ford is a literary scion of Percy.
Except for what appears to be a secular inclination, Ford has the same ironic voice as Percy, a similar alertness to the nuances of language, an interest in deeply philosophical questions, and finally, a disposition to satirize American institutions. Like Percy's Will Barrett and Binx Bolling, Frank Bascombe is an ``arch-ordinary American,'' a wayfarer, bemused, questioning, struggling to live well and happily. Like them, he is a watcher, a waiter and a listener.
Independence Day, a sequel to Ford's highly acclaimed 1986 novel, The Sportswriter, brings us into the middle of Frank Bascombe's new life. Divorced now for seven years from Ann, who has remarried an architect who seems a contemporary equivalent of Babbitt, Bascombe has come to terms with the grief he feels over the death of his first son, Ralph, from Reye's syndrome nearly a decade ago. He is now a real estate agent, an ironically perfect profession, perhaps, for a man who is, at all turns, seeking a sense of community and home.
In The Sportswriter, Bascombe tried to deal with his son's death and his recent divorce. In Independence Day, his problems are, if anything, more complex. He still seems to be in love with his former wife. A previous girlfriend and co-worker has been brutally murdered. His real estate clients are obnoxious, his tenants are threatening and his children have now moved with their mother and stepfather to Deep River, Conn.
Bascombe's most pressing problem, however, is his 15-year-old son, Paul, who is experiencing psychological difficulties (or maybe his problem is just adolescence) and has had a recent run-in with the law. Frank's love for his son leads toward the heart of the narrative, his journey with Paul to the basketball and baseball halls of fame over the July 4th weekend. Their pilgrims' progress is comic, sad, complex and dizzily believable. Paul is a troubled kid who barks occasionally, steals condoms, fights with security guards and does assorted other things that would make a parent nervous, but he is a funny, decent sort of boy as well.
Their father-son conversations are as apt and true as any I have read recently. There are many examples, but here is a piece of one in which Frank is giving Paul some simple advice: ``I'd like you to come live with me a while, maybe learn to play the trumpet, later go to Bowdoin and study marine biology; and not be so sly and inward while you're there. I'd like you to stay a little gullible and not worry too much about standardized tests. Eventually I'd like you to get married and be as monogamous as possible. Maybe buy a house near the water in Washington State, so I could come visit. I'll be more specific when I have time to direct your every waking moment.'' When Paul wants to know what monogamous means, his father says, ``It's something like the old math. It's a cumbersome theory nobody practices anymore but that still works.''
Independence Day is an existential comedy, and Frank Bascombe is a clown-philosopher, a man with good instincts and bad luck, a writer, real estate salesman, father, lost lover - an everyman, of sorts. In Independence Day, Ford has us meet him in the middle of life's journey, in the midst of inexplicable life. And that's exactly where we leave him. There's no other place for him, Ford suggests, or for us either.
- MEMO: Michael Pearson teaches journalism and English at Old Dominion
University and is the author of ``Imagined Places: Journeys into
Literary America'' and ``A Place That's Known.'' He is the father of
three sons. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
JOHN FOLEY
Richard Ford's latest book, ``Independence Day,'' is an existential
comedy centered on Frank Bascombe, the protagonist introduced in
Ford's 1986 novel ``The Sportswriter.''
by CNB