The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

Mid-Marchish, this year: I go into a bookstore with Jon and ask him to pick me out a book to read. He selects about a dozen, narrows it down to three, and lets me decide. The Sportswriter by Richard Ford, an author I had not heard of before, is one of the finalists and looks compelling but I ultimately choose American Pastoral—a decision I would soon not regret. 1.
Maybe a couple days later, possibly a few weeks, I’m in a used bookshop in Winston-Salem with Hunter. As if it is calling me, I randomly come across The Sportswriter. Six bucks? Why not. 2.
I pack for New Zealand and throw in The Sportswriter along with other books. 3.
One month later, Hunter, while amidst Cheever and his “big red book” of short stories, says via e-mail that the story, Reunion, by Cheever, is one of the most beautiful things he’s ever read… Or something to that effect. OK, I decide, I’ll check it out. 4.
I search Reunion and very luckily find a New Yorker fiction podcast where the story is read and discussed by none other than Richard Ford. Hey, I think, that name sounds quite familiar! Was he our 37th or 38th President? 5.
I agree, Reunion is absolute bliss. In the podcast, Ford mentions that the story inspired one of his own stories also called Reunion. I decide to search that as well to see if it’s anything like the other. 6.
Awesome. Ford’s Reunion is completely awesome. One of the best I’d read in a while. I decide to check out more of this Ford guy. 7.
I find another of his stories published in The New Yorker circa 2005. Another fine piece of work. 8.
I rediscover, sitting on my table, The Sportswriter by Ford whom I’ve come to love through the back way despite Jon holding open the front door for me the whole time. I’m massively pumped to read this book. 9.
I READ THE SPORTSWRITER! 10!

That was just a long way of saying that I couldn’t tell you how excited I was to read this book because of how much I liked Ford’s short stories and also because I had this book sitting on my table while I didn’t even know how much I liked the author. I didn’t mean for that list to be 10 points long but it conveniently worked out that way—like it was intentional. Anyway, enough of that.

The book follows a middle-aged, divorced sportswriter, Frank, over the course of a very busy Easter weekend. Briefly, Frank is lost in the world. He used to be a writer, as in a fiction writer, and actually published a well-acclaimed collection of short stories before deciding to jump to sportswriting, although it is clear that he is simply running away from expectations. He had a good life with his ex-wife, who is named only as X, but it still wasn’t complete in some way. It was missing some piece that didn’t make Frank whole and this is evident in the reason why X left him. It is actually no use in trying to describe the plot because it is so inconsequential to how deep and multidimensional the character of Frank is. That is the book—trying to figure Frank out. He is a habitual liar in trivial matters, looking more to please or avoid awkwardness more than anything. Yet what I think is so great is that I can’t feel sorry for Frank. Although I wish he was still with his ex-wife and writing novels and he seems to secretly want that too, Richard Ford always shut the door on sympathy by putting him in a situation where he isn’t very likable. Even though I have some strong opinions on Frank, I can’t do him a quality character analysis (spent way too much time on that introduction list) but what I can do is highly recommend this book. He is a character that, I think, will stay in your mind a while because he is so human and everything that comes with that.

The writing is also top-notch stuff. It’s highly readable in the sense that it flows effortlessly from one line to the next and does so with a very easy vocabulary. I’m quite interested in the sequel, Independence Day, which won the Pulitzer in… 1995?
If you read this book, look out for all the times that Ford describes a woman as having big breasts. I believe every woman’s body he describes (at least 4) is well-chested.