Frank Bascombe has a younger girlfriend and a job as a sportswriter. To many men of his age, thirty-eight, this would be a cause for optimism, yet Frank feels the pull of his inner despair and especially of his recent losses - his preferred career has ended, his wife has divorced him, and a tragic accident took his elder son. In the course of this Easter weekend, Frank will lose all the remnants of his familiar life, though he will emerge heroic with spirits soaring. This is a magnificent novel that propelled Richard Ford into the first rank of American writers.
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Review
`Ford has wrought a pitch-perfect thing of wonder ... a brilliant
elegiac novel'
-- Newsday
`Masterly ... moving ... It is an original and admirable
achievement' -- Evening Standard
`One of the most remarkable and enjoyable American novels in
recent years' -- Time Out
`Richard Ford's sportswriter is a bird rare in life and nearly
extinct in fiction' -- Tobias Wolff
`Riveting reading ... a memorable book' -- Observer
elegiac novel'
-- Newsday
`Masterly ... moving ... It is an original and admirable
achievement' -- Evening Standard
`One of the most remarkable and enjoyable American novels in
recent years' -- Time Out
`Richard Ford's sportswriter is a bird rare in life and nearly
extinct in fiction' -- Tobias Wolff
`Riveting reading ... a memorable book' -- Observer
About the Author
Richard Ford was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1944. He has published five novels and three collections of stories, including The Sportswriter, Independence Day, Wildlife, A Multitude of Sins and most recently The Lay of the Land. Independence Day was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Don't be put off by the title: this isn't really a book about sport or sportswriting. It's one of the greatest first-person-narrator novels of all time. The first of Richard Ford's astonishing Frank Bascombe books, this is perhaps a slightly conventional novel than its successors, Independence Day and The Lay Of The Land, but it's no less powerful.
If you are a sensitive human being you will be able to read this and see the world through Frank's weary, downtrodden but somehow optimisic eyes. You will also feel you are less alone on the planet. It's funny, sad, poignant and uplifting stuff.
If you are a sensitive human being you will be able to read this and see the world through Frank's weary, downtrodden but somehow optimisic eyes. You will also feel you are less alone on the planet. It's funny, sad, poignant and uplifting stuff.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By M. Harding
Format:Paperback
There's little about sport or the craft of the sportswriter in this book and my biggest challenge has been to convince women that they should read it. But if you are female, I recommend this book particularly, as I thought it a rare and revealing journey through a man's confusion about the loss of love and relationship.
The first time I read this book, I enjoyed it. I had just divorced and the main character's (Frank Bascombe) struggle to reconcile himself to his new state resonated for me.
Years later, in the throes of a happy and fulfilling relationship, I re-read `The Sportswriter' and found new pleasure in it. I think that Ford creates an uncomfortable character, infuriatingly self-reflective and inert at times. In this sense, Bascombe becomes an anti-hero, challenging the reader to examine his or her own condition.
The first time I read this book, I enjoyed it. I had just divorced and the main character's (Frank Bascombe) struggle to reconcile himself to his new state resonated for me.
Years later, in the throes of a happy and fulfilling relationship, I re-read `The Sportswriter' and found new pleasure in it. I think that Ford creates an uncomfortable character, infuriatingly self-reflective and inert at times. In this sense, Bascombe becomes an anti-hero, challenging the reader to examine his or her own condition.
19 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Woven into events in the life of Frank Bascombe - the said sportswriter - over one Easter weekend, we have a tale of losing and then finding yourself as a nearing-middle-aged male. The language used has been carefully, even beautifully, chosen in places but clever craftsmanship is not enough.
Critics have found Ford's writing "elegaic" - but that can translate as "ponderous" at times, with interminable introspections leaving this reader desperate for some forward motion in the plot; soldiering on only with gritted teeth.
Quite likely the book - as a celebration of the life of an "ordinary Joe" - works better for a US than a European audience. Many of the cultural and geographic references were lost on me. The claim that Ford "finds the transcendent in the mundane" didn't hold water - all he seemed to manage to find was the mundane.
In a book that tries ultimately to be about hope, the tone for the bulk of the story seemed misanthropic. We are richly, if indigestibly, drawn into seeing the world through Frank's eyes but this lacks the warmth to really make a connection.
Critics have found Ford's writing "elegaic" - but that can translate as "ponderous" at times, with interminable introspections leaving this reader desperate for some forward motion in the plot; soldiering on only with gritted teeth.
Quite likely the book - as a celebration of the life of an "ordinary Joe" - works better for a US than a European audience. Many of the cultural and geographic references were lost on me. The claim that Ford "finds the transcendent in the mundane" didn't hold water - all he seemed to manage to find was the mundane.
In a book that tries ultimately to be about hope, the tone for the bulk of the story seemed misanthropic. We are richly, if indigestibly, drawn into seeing the world through Frank's eyes but this lacks the warmth to really make a connection.
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3.4 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Melancholy ruminations with a dash of inspiration
It seemed somehow apt that I found my copy of THE SPORTSWRITER in a charity shop - the 1996 Harvill Panther edition with the monochrome cover and the stark typeface. Read more
Published 12 days ago by Dr Gonzo
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Sportswriter
The Sportswriter: Excellent book fascinating study into the effects and affects of losing a child. I am certainly going to buy the next volume.
Published 5 months ago by docM
2.0 out of 5 stars
Abandoned
I am having difficulty with this book and have not read very far in to it. I am finding the story weak and have no sympathy with the main character; I shall go back to it in... Read more
Published 6 months ago by bighorsehill
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable reading for long night.
We have purchased this with 2 more of his works. This is one of his popular writings, and we have enjoyed throughly. Good to have long wintery night for reading pleasure.
Published 6 months ago by Adlerinternational
4.0 out of 5 stars
Studied Reflections On Life
Richard Ford's 1986 novel The Sportswriter is a small-scale, philosophical tale of (largely, self-) refection as told by its narrator, failed novelist, and now sportswriter, Frank... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Keith M
2.0 out of 5 stars
tedious
I bought this book after hearing a fairly favourable review on the radio, although, to be fair, the review panel was not unanimous in its praise. Read more
Published 14 months ago by lesharris
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dreary dull and HARD work
Oh Dear I read a good review in the Telegraph about Richard Ford.
I had never heard of him
So I ordered this
What a disappointment The hero was... Read more
I had never heard of him
So I ordered this
What a disappointment The hero was... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Ronald Ellis
3.0 out of 5 stars
He's no Updike
Some people have compared Richard Ford to John Updike and having just read "The Sportswriter", I can see why. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Rusty
5.0 out of 5 stars
READ IT!
This is not a book about a sportswriter. It is a book about an ordinary man, in an ordinary job and life who is working through bereavement of marraige, loss of son and the fog he... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mrs. Elaine Davies
1.0 out of 5 stars
Twenty times too long
This novel reads like a fine Raymond Carver short story, but padded up endlessly with repetition and unnecessary detail in order to make it twenty times longer than it ought to be. Read more
Published on 2 May 2011 by Philip S. Walker
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