Independence Day

Just finished another of the books the New York Times poll voted as one of the best American novels of the last 25 years, "Independence Day," by Richard Ford. This is a sequel to Ford's "The Sportswriter," which I read about 20 years ago but don't remember all that much. Set in 1988, the narrator, Frank Bascombe, is no longer a sportswriter, and now sells real estate in the central New Jersey town of Haddam. The novel covers a few days of his life over the Fourth of July holiday. He is trying to find a house for a difficult couple, and then takes his son, who lives in Connecticut with his ex-wife, for a weekend trip to the basketball and baseball halls of fame.

This book is in the genre some call "dirty realism," because of the minute detail that Ford goes into. We get almost a minute-by-minute dissection of Bascombe's day, including roads he takes. At times the writing is thrillingly vivid, but at times I also got a little glassy-eyed as Bascombe goes over the thoughts racing through his head. He's not a particularly likeable guy, given to impulse behavior, which leads to a catastrophe, so there are times I wished he was just get it together.

A fun thing for me: Haddam, New Jersey is clearly a fictionalized Princeton. Ford fictionalizes many of the streets but not all of them, so it was neat to try to figure out what stood for what. (Penn's Neck, I believe, was Princeton Junction, for example). Also, I've been to Cooperstown many times, so the segment that took place there resonated with me.