Bye, Frank?
He's only 75, with more life and sharp observation sure to follow... if only Richard Ford will authorize it.
Richard Ford on BBC 4 Books & Authors, asked what it feels like to be done with Frank Bascombe, says “It doesn’t feel like anything, frankly… I don’t sentimentalize it… I never forget that I’m doing this, and that I can also stop doing this…
But it’s your job, interjects his host. “It is my privilege, it is my honor.”
Well, it’s been my privilege to read all of the Bascombe books from The Sportswriter on. It’s been my pleasure to pull those books off the shelf and spend quality time revisiting them on their pegged holiday occasions year after year (Easter, Jy 4, Thanksgiving, now Feb 14). It was my honor to spend a few moments in 1995, and then again a couple of decades later, chatting with Frank’s creator and relating my high regard for the volume and depth of his creation. And it’s my treasure to possess thoughtful personalized inscriptions from Mr. Ford in my copies of Independence Day and Let Me Be Frank With You.
But it is my disappointment to hear him dispatch and dissolve his fictional characters so casually.
He calls them “instrumentations of language,” which they of course are. That’s the wonder and the spell of literature. But a big part of the artistry of these books for me (and not just for me, I know from discussing them with friends) is Frank’s credibility and, you might even call it, his vitality. He transcends the deft language that made him, at least for us appreciative and admiring readers.
We will miss him. His exit feels like a loss.
And it seems like a benevolent creator would be more invested in his creation.
So Mr. Ford, please keep Frank in your contacts list. You never know what he might still get up to. Or we don’t. You’ve not done all the holidays yet, right? Groundhog Day, maybe?