PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Independence Day
Richard Ford’s Independence Day won the award. Through middle-aged Frank Bascombe, it explores family, loss, and the instability of ordinary life.
Work Information
A novel of middle age, family, and emotional drift.
Following a Fourth of July weekend in New Jersey, the novel quietly examines divorce, fatherhood, and a man trying to understand his place in life.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Knopf
- Published
- 1995-06-13
- Pages
- 464 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 16.51 x 3.56 x 24.26 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780679492658
- ISBN-10
- 0679492658
- Price
- 6827 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Contemporary
Frank Bascombe is no longer a sportswriter, yet he's still living in Haddam, New Jersey, where he now sells real estate. He's still divorced, though his ex-wife, to his dismay, has remarried and moved along with their children to Connecticut. But Frank is happy enough in his work and pursuing various civic and entrepreneurial sidelines. He has high hopes for this 4th of July weekend: a search for a house for deeply hapless clients relocating to Vermont; a rendezvous on the Jersey shore with his girlfriend; then up to Connecticut to pick up his larcenous and emotionally troubled teenage son and visit as many sports halls of fame as they can fit into two days. Frank's Independence Day, however, turns out not as he'd planned, and this decent, appealingly bewildered, profoundly observant man is wrenched, gradually and inevitably, out of his private refuge. Independence Day captures the mystery of life — in all its conflicted glory — with grand humour, intense compassion and transfixing power. From the Trade Paperback edition.
The author of five novels and two collections of stories, Richard Ford was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Independence Day , the first book to win both prizes. In 2001 he received the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in short fiction. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Reviews
-
An author really worth reading, great attention to detail and real life experiences.
-
Ford is a true genius. The tension is effortless. It’s funny and deep and relevant. Blown away.
-
An outstanding novel, most marvellously written. It describes the narcissistic failures of fatherhood (especially towards their sons) and how the promise of the young can be misunderstood and ruthlessly destroyed by the utter selfishness of their parents. It's a very remarkable work of art and why it should won two major prizes becomes obvious even before the first paragraph has been read. Richard Ford has written a classic in his own time. Very highly recommended.
-
A coherent and utterly believable philosophical long weekend expressed so creatively and so eloquently by an astounding writer. A most satisfying read that proposes and contemplates simple yet important ideas and precepts on escapism and its follies.
-
I thought this was a very good sequel of sorts to 'The Sportswriter.' Frank Bascome is an engaging character and the story is well written and arced. Some very funny stuff and some very serious stuff expertly crafted.
Related Literary Awards
- PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Edition 16 (1996) ・Winner
- Pulitzer Prize Edition 80 (1996) ・Winner
- Park Kyong-ni Prize Edition 8 (2018) ・Winner