by Richard Ford
Advanced Reading Copy | Alfred A. Knopf | 1995
Independence Day is the second book in the Frank Bascombe series and takes place over the Fourth of July weekend. A follow-up to The Sportswriter, we find our protagonist, Frank Bascombe, on a post-divorce adventure. Frank is in many ways a typical American. At one point, he’s even living the stereotypical American Dream—he has the wife, the white-picket fence, the two kids.
But after the mid-life crisis that is The Sportswriter, we’re now seeing Frank trying to rebuild his life from the ruins of his old one. His wife has re-married and moved across the country, he rarely sees his kids, and he’s replaced his flashy sportswriting job with a humble real estate gig.
And yet, there are problems. His three-day holiday weekend becomes an odyssey of issues with stops along the way to his ex-wife, his current girlfriend, his troubled son–all culminating into a car trip to the Basketball and Baseball Hall of Fame.
Considered the best of the five Frank Bascombe books, Independence Day won both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1996–the first book to ever win both in one year. It is a microcosm of life set against the macrocosm of the American dream on the most American of holidays.
P.S — Fans of The Pitt will resonate with the Dr. Robby-esque Frank and the condensed holiday timeline.