US literature
Richard Ford’s new road trip “Valentine’s Day”
With “Valentine’s Day”, Richard Ford presents a new novel with his hero Frank Bascombe. photo
© Rogelio V. Solis/AP/dpa
Richard Ford made his breakthrough as an author in the USA in the mid-1980s with “Der Sportreporter”. Now there’s news from Frank Bascombe to read.
For the fifth time, US bestselling author Richard Ford has chosen his protagonist Frank Bascombe as the hero of a novel. In “Valentine’s Day” the writer, who was born in Mississippi in 1944, lets the now 74-year-old Frank go on a final road trip with his terminally ill son. The trip goes in a mobile home to a quintessentially American location, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota with the four presidential heads carved in stone.
The original English version “Be Mine” was released in June. The critics in the The USA had made largely positive statements. “Ford belongs to the elite of American authors of the past 50 years and this book shows his talents,” wrote the New York Times, for example.
Frank Bascombe worked as a sports reporter and later became a real estate agent. Ford has spoken about his life four times – in “The Sports Reporter”, “Independence Day”, “The State of the Country” and “Frank”. Always with deep insights into the American soul, including its abysses. Ford, who is also the author of numerous other novels and short stories, received both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for “Independence Day”.
Richard Ford: Valentine’s Day, Hanser Berlin, 384 pages, ISBN 978-3-446-27732-8,