Richard Ford 'Be Mine' with Max Liu

The Frank Bascombe Series

Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction (The Sports Writer, The Lay of the Land, Independence Day and Let Me Be Frank with You) and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive and singular view of American life as lived in the character of Frank Bascombe. We're delighted to welcome Richard Ford to Blackwell's to discuss Be Mine, the final novel in this series.

Be Mine (A Frank Bascombe Novel)

From Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford: the final novel in the world of Frank Bascombe, one of the most indelible characters in American literature Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive, and singular view of American life as lived.

Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway. Now in the twilight of life, a man who has occupied many colorful lives-sportswriter, father, husband, ex-husband, friend, real estate agent-Bascombe finds himself in the most sorrowing role of all: caregiver to his son, Paul, diagnosed with ALS. On a shared winter odyssey to Mount Rushmore, Frank, in typical Bascombe fashion, faces down the mortality that is assured each of us, and in doing so confronts what happiness might signify at the end of days.

Richard Ford

The internationally bestselling and acclaimed American writer, Richard Ford, is the winner of numerous awards and prizes including the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Prix Femina Étranger in France and the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature in Spain.

His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land and Let Me Be Frank With You, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories. Ford received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1996 for Independence Day. Ford's novel Wildlife was adapted into a 2018 film of the same name. He won the 2018 Park Kyong-ni Prize.

This event will take place in the Benjamin Henry Room on the 3rd floor of the shop. Tickets cost £5 each. Richard will be in conversation with freelance writer, Max Liu.

For all enquiries, please call 01865 792792.

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