Independence Day

A few months ago,  I blogged about Richard Ford's novel The Sportswriter, the first novel in what developed into "The Bascombe Trilogy" based on the main character in each of the three novels: Frank Bascombe.

I've recently finished the second of the three novels: Independence Day.  It was published in 1995, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1996.  The story opens about six years after we left Frank in The Sportswriter.  He is no longer writing occasional sports stories for a national magazine and he has completely abandoned the idea of finishing a novel he started writing many years earlier.  Frank is now a real estate agent, still living in the same town but in much smaller digs.

Frank's ex-wife has remarried and moved a not-too-far distance away.  Their two children are living with their mother and new husband and Frank is terribly lonely.  His divorce is "friendly" and he and his ex-wfe struggle to deal with lingering feelings but seemingly irreconcilable differences.  Frank mourns the loss of his marriage and often reflects on that loss.  He feels primarily responsible for its dissolution and would like nothing better than to be re-united with his ex-wife, but Ann has moved on with her life although she is saddened by the divorce as well.   Frank sees his children regularly but still feels disconnected and set adrift by the move.

Independence Day, like The Sportswriter, does not revolve around one huge event.  It takes place over a long Fourth of July weekend and centers on Frank's efforts to re-connect with his teen-aged son, Paul, who is demonstrating some erratic behaviors and injecting a good amount of hostility into a formerly close relationship with his dad.

Like Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose (but not quite as finely written), this second Frank Bascombe novel is predominantly an internal monologue with some exchanges of dialog scattered throughout the story.  Frank is just one flawed middle-aged man dealing with life's ups and downs as we all do.  He is funny and smart, sardonic and sometimes very sad.   He has not been particularly successful at parenting; at least that is his assessment, and his ex-wife agrees with him.  But he wants to  improve and embarks on a concerted effort to do so.  But he also realizes the difficulties of parenting a disgruntled teenager: "The worst of being a parent is my fate, then: being an adult.  Not owning the right language; not dreading the same dreads and contingencies and missed chances; the fate of knowing much yet having to stand like a lamppost with its lamp lit, hoping my child will see the glow and venture closer for the illumination and warmth it offers."  Although we might not have the skills to describe the role of a parent quite so beautifully, we can identify with that longing to be really inside our kids' lives and their many challenges, yet knowing at the same time it just isn't possible.  We can just be there; that lamppost.

Frank and his son have their lighter moments too.  Frank is sharing his goals for Paul and mentions that someday, he'd like to see him "get married and be as monogamous as possible."  Paul responds "What's monogamous?"  Frank's reply made me laugh out loud: "It's something like the old math.  It's a cumbersome theory nobody practices anymore but that still works."

Independence Day is not a novel to rush through but to savor.  It's not a page-turner, not a mystery, not a romance novel.  It's a finely-wrought, mature observation of life.