|
Richard Ford 1944–, American novelist, b. Jackson, Miss.; grad. Michigan State Univ. (B.A., 1966), Univ. of California, Irvine (M.F.A., 1970). His concerns are those of a moralist who displays a deeply felt sympathy toward his often struggling, sometimes down-at-the-heels characters; his prose style is straightforward, even spare. Ford's literary reputation was established with The Sportswriter (1986), a widely acclaimed novel that is still his best known. It is a first-person account of a weekend in the life of novelist-turned-sportswriter Frank Bascombe, a tough-minded yet thoughtful, alienated yet acutely observant character whose reflections on his own life reveal much about contemporary America. Bascombe reappears in a sequel, Independence Day (1995, Pulitzer Prize). Ford's other novels include A Piece of My Heart (1976), The Ultimate Good Luck (1981), and Wildlife (1990). He has also written numerous short stories, many dealing with life in the rural West and collected in Rock Springs (1987), the three novellas of Women with Men (1997), and later stories focused on marital infidelity in the collection A Multitude of Sins (2002). His works also include essays, a play (1983), and a screenplay (1991), and he has edited several short-story anthologies.
See studies by H. Guagliardo, ed. (2000) and E. A. Walker (2000).
|
