Richard Ford
Encyclopedia
Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize
-winning American
novel
ist and short story
writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter
and its sequels, Independence Day
and The Lay of the Land
, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.
, the only son of Parker Carrol Ford, a traveling salesman for Faultless Starch
, a Kansas City
company. When Ford was eight years old, his father had a major heart attack
, and thereafter Ford spent as much time with his grandfather, a former prizefighter and hotel owner in Little Rock, Arkansas
, as he did with his parents in Mississippi. Ford’s father died of a second heart attack in 1960.
Ford received a B.A.
from Michigan State University
. Having enrolled to study hotel management, he switched to English. After graduating he taught junior high school in Flint
, Michigan
, and enlisted in the US Marines but was discharged after contracting hepatitis. At university he met Kristina Hensley, his future wife; the two married in 1968.
Despite mild dyslexia
, Ford developed a serious interest in literature
. He has stated in interviews that his dyslexia may, in fact, have helped him as a reader, as it forced him to approach books at a slow and thoughtful pace.
Ford briefly attended law school but dropped out and entered the creative writing program at the University of California, Irvine
, to pursue a Master of Fine Arts
degree, which he received in 1970. Ford chose this course simply because, he confesses, “they admitted me. I remember getting the application for Iowa, and thinking they’d never have let me in. I’m sure I was right about that, too. But, typical of me, I didn’t know who was teaching at Irvine. I didn’t know it was important to know such things. I wasn’t the most curious of young men, even though I give myself credit for not letting that deter me.” As it turned out, Oakley Hall
and E. L. Doctorow
were teaching there, and Ford has been explicit about his debt to them. In 1971 he was selected for a three-year appointment in the University of Michigan
Society of Fellows.
, in 1976, and followed it with The Ultimate Good Luck in 1981. In the interim he briefly taught at Williams College
and Princeton
. Despite good notices the books sold little, and Ford retired from fiction writing to become a writer for the New York
magazine Inside Sports. "I realized," Ford has said, "there was probably a wide gulf between what I could do and what would succeed with readers. I felt that I’d had a chance to write two novels, and neither of them had really created much stir, so maybe I should find real employment, and earn my keep."
In 1982 the magazine folded, and when Sports Illustrated
did not hire Ford, he returned to fiction writing with The Sportswriter, a novel about a failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an emotional crisis following the death of his son. The novel became Ford’s "breakout book", named one of Time
magazine's five best books of 1986 and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
. Ford followed the success immediately with Rock Springs (1987), a story collection mostly set in Montana
that includes some of his most popular stories, adding to his reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation.
Reviewers and literary critics associated the stories in Rock Springs with the aesthetic movement known as dirty realism
. This term referred to a group of writers in the 1970s and 1980s that included Raymond Carver
and Tobias Wolff
—two writers with whom Ford was closely acquainted—as well as Ann Beattie
, Frederick Barthelme
, and Jayne Anne Phillips, among others. Those applying this label point to Carver's lower-middle-class subjects or the protagonists Ford portrays in Rock Springs. However, many of the characters in the "Frank Bascombe" novels (The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land), notably the protagonist himself, enjoy degrees of material affluence and cultural capital
not normally associated with the "dirty realist" style.
Although his 1990 novel Wildlife
, a story of a Montana
golf pro turned firefighter, met with mixed reviews and middling sales, by the end of the 1980s Ford's reputation was solid. He was increasingly sought after as an editor and contributor to various projects. Ford edited the 1990 Best American Short Stories
, the 1992 Granta
Book of the American Short Story, and the 1998 Granta Book of the American Long Story, a designation he claimed in the introduction to prefer to the novella. More recently he has edited the 2007 New Granta
Book of the American Short Story, and the Library of America
's two-volume edition of the selected works of fellow Mississippi writer Eudora Welty
.
In 1995, Ford’s career reached a high point with the release of Independence Day, a sequel to The Sportswriter, featuring the continued story of its protagonist, Frank Bascombe. Reviews were positive, and the novel became the first to win both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
. In the same year, Ford was chosen as winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story
, for outstanding achievement in that genre. Ford’s recent works include the story collections Women with Men (1997) and A Multitude of Sins (2002). The Lay of the Land (2006) continues (and, according to Ford, ends) the Frank Bascombe series.
Ford lived for many years on lower Bourbon Street in the French Quarter
and then in the Garden District
of New Orleans
, Louisiana
, where his wife Kristina was the executive director of the city planning commission. He now lives in East Boothbay, Maine
. He took up a teaching appointment at Bowdoin College
in 2005, but remained in the post for only one semester. Since 2008 Ford has been Adjunct Professor at the Oscar Wilde Centre
with the School of English at Trinity College, Dublin
, Ireland
, and teaches on the Masters programme in creative writing.
As of December 29, 2010, Ford will be assuming the post of senior fiction professor at the University of Mississippi in the Fall of 2011, replacing Barry Hannah
, who died in March 2010.
In the fall of 2012, Ford will become the Emmanuel Roman and Barrie Sardoff Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Writing at Columbia University
.
Comparisons have been drawn between Ford's work and the writings of John Updike
, William Faulkner
, Ernest Hemingway
and Walker Percy
. Ford himself resists such comparisons, commenting, "You can't write ... on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself."
Ford's works of fiction "dramatize the breakdown of such cultural institutions as marriage, family, and community", and his "marginalized protagonists often typify the rootlessness and nameless longing ... pervasive in a highly mobile, present-oriented society in which individuals, having lost a sense of the past, relentlessly pursue their own elusive identities in the here and now." Ford "looks to art, rather than religion, to provide consolation and redemption in a chaotic time".
} – Transcript of interview with Ramona Koval
, The Book Show
, ABC Radio National 31 December 2007
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist and short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter
The Sportswriter
The Sportswriter is a 1986 novel by Richard Ford. It is about a failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an existential crisis following the death of his son. In 1995, it was followed by a sequel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day...
and its sequels, Independence Day
Independence Day (novel)
Independence Day is a 1995 novel by Richard Ford and the sequel to Ford's 1986 novel The Sportswriter.It won the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1996, the first novel ever to win both awards in a single year....
and The Lay of the Land
The Lay of the Land
The Lay of the Land is a 2006 novel by American author Richard Ford. The novel is the third in a trilogy, which began with The Sportswriter and was followed several years later by Independence Day...
, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.
Early life
Ford was born in Jackson, MississippiJackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
, the only son of Parker Carrol Ford, a traveling salesman for Faultless Starch
Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company
Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company is the maker of a variety of household cleaning items including Bon Ami. The company's headquarters are in Kansas City, Missouri....
, a Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
company. When Ford was eight years old, his father had a major heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
, and thereafter Ford spent as much time with his grandfather, a former prizefighter and hotel owner in Little Rock, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, as he did with his parents in Mississippi. Ford’s father died of a second heart attack in 1960.
Ford received a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
from Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
. Having enrolled to study hotel management, he switched to English. After graduating he taught junior high school in Flint
Flint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, and enlisted in the US Marines but was discharged after contracting hepatitis. At university he met Kristina Hensley, his future wife; the two married in 1968.
Despite mild dyslexia
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid...
, Ford developed a serious interest in literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
. He has stated in interviews that his dyslexia may, in fact, have helped him as a reader, as it forced him to approach books at a slow and thoughtful pace.
Ford briefly attended law school but dropped out and entered the creative writing program at the University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
, to pursue a Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
degree, which he received in 1970. Ford chose this course simply because, he confesses, “they admitted me. I remember getting the application for Iowa, and thinking they’d never have let me in. I’m sure I was right about that, too. But, typical of me, I didn’t know who was teaching at Irvine. I didn’t know it was important to know such things. I wasn’t the most curious of young men, even though I give myself credit for not letting that deter me.” As it turned out, Oakley Hall
Oakley Hall
Oakley Maxwell Hall was an American novelist. He was born in San Diego, California, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and served in the Marines during World War II. Some of his mysteries were published under the pen names "O.M...
and E. L. Doctorow
E. L. Doctorow
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is an American author.- Biography :Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born in the Bronx, New York City, the son of second-generation Americans of Russian Jewish descent...
were teaching there, and Ford has been explicit about his debt to them. In 1971 he was selected for a three-year appointment in the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
Society of Fellows.
Later life and works
Ford published his first novel, A Piece of My Heart, the story of two unlikely drifters whose paths cross on an island in the Mississippi RiverMississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
, in 1976, and followed it with The Ultimate Good Luck in 1981. In the interim he briefly taught at Williams College
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...
and Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. Despite good notices the books sold little, and Ford retired from fiction writing to become a writer for the New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
magazine Inside Sports. "I realized," Ford has said, "there was probably a wide gulf between what I could do and what would succeed with readers. I felt that I’d had a chance to write two novels, and neither of them had really created much stir, so maybe I should find real employment, and earn my keep."
In 1982 the magazine folded, and when Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
did not hire Ford, he returned to fiction writing with The Sportswriter, a novel about a failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an emotional crisis following the death of his son. The novel became Ford’s "breakout book", named one of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's five best books of 1986 and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. The foundation brings the winner and runners-up to...
. Ford followed the success immediately with Rock Springs (1987), a story collection mostly set in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
that includes some of his most popular stories, adding to his reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation.
Reviewers and literary critics associated the stories in Rock Springs with the aesthetic movement known as dirty realism
Dirty realism
Dirty Realism is a North American literary movement born in the 1970s-80s in which the narrative is stripped down to its fundamental features.This movement is a derivative of minimalism. As minimalism, dirty realism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description...
. This term referred to a group of writers in the 1970s and 1980s that included Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
and Tobias Wolff
Tobias Wolff
Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an American author. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life , and his short stories. He has also written two novels.-Biography:Wolff was born in 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama...
—two writers with whom Ford was closely acquainted—as well as Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger,...
, Frederick Barthelme
Frederick Barthelme
Fredrick Barthelme is an American novelist and short story author, well known as one of the seminal writers of minimalist fiction...
, and Jayne Anne Phillips, among others. Those applying this label point to Carver's lower-middle-class subjects or the protagonists Ford portrays in Rock Springs. However, many of the characters in the "Frank Bascombe" novels (The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land), notably the protagonist himself, enjoy degrees of material affluence and cultural capital
Cultural capital
The term cultural capital refers to non-financial social assets; they may be educational or intellectual, which might promote social mobility beyond economic means....
not normally associated with the "dirty realist" style.
Although his 1990 novel Wildlife
Wildlife
Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....
, a story of a Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
golf pro turned firefighter, met with mixed reviews and middling sales, by the end of the 1980s Ford's reputation was solid. He was increasingly sought after as an editor and contributor to various projects. Ford edited the 1990 Best American Short Stories
Best American series
The Best American Series is an annually-published collection of books, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, each of which features a different genre or theme. Each book selects from works published in North America during the previous year, selected by a guest editor who is an established writer...
, the 1992 Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
Book of the American Short Story, and the 1998 Granta Book of the American Long Story, a designation he claimed in the introduction to prefer to the novella. More recently he has edited the 2007 New Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
Book of the American Short Story, and the Library of America
Library of America
The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published over 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to Philip...
's two-volume edition of the selected works of fellow Mississippi writer Eudora Welty
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...
.
In 1995, Ford’s career reached a high point with the release of Independence Day, a sequel to The Sportswriter, featuring the continued story of its protagonist, Frank Bascombe. Reviews were positive, and the novel became the first to win both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
. In the same year, Ford was chosen as winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story
Rea Award for the Short Story
The Rea Award for the Short Story is an annual award given to a living American or Canadian author chosen for unusually significant contributions to short story fiction.-The Award:...
, for outstanding achievement in that genre. Ford’s recent works include the story collections Women with Men (1997) and A Multitude of Sins (2002). The Lay of the Land (2006) continues (and, according to Ford, ends) the Frank Bascombe series.
Ford lived for many years on lower Bourbon Street in the French Quarter
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...
and then in the Garden District
Garden District, New Orleans
The Garden District is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Central City/Garden District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: St. Charles Avenue to the north, 1st Street to the east, Magazine Street to the south and Toledano Street to the...
of New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, where his wife Kristina was the executive director of the city planning commission. He now lives in East Boothbay, Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
. He took up a teaching appointment at Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...
in 2005, but remained in the post for only one semester. Since 2008 Ford has been Adjunct Professor at the Oscar Wilde Centre
Oscar Wilde Centre
The Oscar Wilde Centre is an academic research and teaching unit in Trinity College, Dublin. It was founded in 1998, and is located at 21 Westland Row, the house in which Oscar Wilde was born and raised. This building, which is on the perimeter of Trinity, was purchased in the 20th century as part...
with the School of English at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, and teaches on the Masters programme in creative writing.
As of December 29, 2010, Ford will be assuming the post of senior fiction professor at the University of Mississippi in the Fall of 2011, replacing Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah
Howard Barry Hannah was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi.The author of eight novels and five short story collections , Hannah worked with notable American editors and publishers such as Gordon Lish, Seymour Lawrence, and Morgan Entrekin...
, who died in March 2010.
In the fall of 2012, Ford will become the Emmanuel Roman and Barrie Sardoff Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Writing at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
Critical opinion
Richard Ford's writings demonstrate "a meticulous concern for the nuances of language ... [and] the rhythms of phrases and sentences". Ford has described his sense of language as "a source of pleasure in itself -- all of its corporeal qualities, its syncopations, moods, sounds, the way things look on the page." This "devotion to language" is closely linked to what he calls "the fabric of affection that holds people close enough together to survive."Comparisons have been drawn between Ford's work and the writings of John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
, William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
and Walker Percy
Walker Percy
Walker Percy was an American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962...
. Ford himself resists such comparisons, commenting, "You can't write ... on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself."
Ford's works of fiction "dramatize the breakdown of such cultural institutions as marriage, family, and community", and his "marginalized protagonists often typify the rootlessness and nameless longing ... pervasive in a highly mobile, present-oriented society in which individuals, having lost a sense of the past, relentlessly pursue their own elusive identities in the here and now." Ford "looks to art, rather than religion, to provide consolation and redemption in a chaotic time".
Novels
- A Piece of My Heart (1976)
- The Ultimate Good Luck (1981)
- The SportswriterThe SportswriterThe Sportswriter is a 1986 novel by Richard Ford. It is about a failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an existential crisis following the death of his son. In 1995, it was followed by a sequel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day...
(1986) - Wildlife (1990)
- Independence DayIndependence Day (novel)Independence Day is a 1995 novel by Richard Ford and the sequel to Ford's 1986 novel The Sportswriter.It won the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1996, the first novel ever to win both awards in a single year....
(1995) - The Lay of the LandThe Lay of the LandThe Lay of the Land is a 2006 novel by American author Richard Ford. The novel is the third in a trilogy, which began with The Sportswriter and was followed several years later by Independence Day...
(2006) - Canada (forthcoming)
Story collections
- Rock SpringsRock Springs (book)Rock Springs is a highly regarded collection of 10 short stories by Pulitzer prize winning author Richard Ford, published in 1987 dealing with dysfunctional mothers and fathers and their effect on a young male narrator...
(1987) - Women with Men: Three Stories (1997)
- A Multitude of Sins (2002)
- Vintage Ford (2004)
- Untitled short story collection (forthcoming)
As contributor or editor
- The GrantaGrantaGranta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
Book of the American Short Story (1992) - The GrantaGrantaGranta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
Book of the American Long Story (1999) - The Essential Tales of ChekhovChekhov- People :* Alexander Chekhov, older brother of Anton Chekhov* Anton Chekhov , Russian writer** Chekhov Gymnasium, school, and now museum in Taganrog** Chekhov Library, public library in Taganrog** Anton Chekhov class motorship...
(1999) - The New GrantaGrantaGranta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
Book of the American Short Story (2007) - Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories of Work (2011)
Books about Richard Ford
- Huey Guagliardo, Perspectives on Richard Ford: Redeemed by Affection, University Press of Mississippi, 2000 ISBN 978-1-57806-234-8
- Huey Guagliardo, ed., Conversations with Richard Ford, University Press of Mississippi, 2001 ISBN 978-1-57806-406-9
External links
- Work
- "Nobody's Everyman", BookforumBookforumBookforum is a New York-based magazine devoted to books and the discussion of literature. It is edited by Albert Mobilio, Chris Lehmann, , and Michael Miller.-History: Bookforum was launched in 1994 as a literary supplement to Artforum...
(Apr/May 2009) - Leaving for Kenosha, The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
(2008) - How Was it to be Dead?, The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
(2007)
- "Nobody's Everyman", Bookforum
- Profiles
- Bibliography, University of MississippiUniversity of MississippiThe University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
- Profile, PloughsharesPloughsharesPloughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston...
- Bibliography, University of Mississippi
- Interviews
} – Transcript of interview with Ramona Koval
Ramona Koval
Ramona Koval is an Australian broadcaster, writer and journalist.Her parents were Yiddish-speaking survivors of the Holocaust who arrived in Melbourne from Poland in 1950....
, The Book Show
The Book Show
The Book Show is an Australian ABC radio program for the discussion of everything relating to the written word. It is broadcast live around Australia on Radio National with a daily weekday morning show which is then replayed nightly and also has a Sunday evening show. The show is hosted by Ramona...
, ABC Radio National 31 December 2007
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- Interview for public radio in Maine (2006), Maine Humanities CouncilMaine Humanities CouncilLocated in Portland, Maine, the was founded in 1975 as a private nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is one of 56 in the United States and its territories....
- Interview (1996), Salon.comSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
- Interview on Writer's Voice (2006) with radio host, Francesca Rheannon.
- Interview (2002), IdentityTheory.com
- Interview (2006), The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
- Interview (2006), Nerve.comNerve (website)Nerve is an American online magazine dedicated to sex, relationships and culture. Founded by Rufus Griscom and Genevieve Field, it publishes articles and photography. It also hosts blogs, forums, and a section for personal advertisements. Nerve's CEO is Sean Mills...
- Interview, book reading, and discussion video streams and MP3 download (2006), University of PennsylvaniaUniversity of PennsylvaniaThe University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
- Interview February 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning author talks with Robert Birnbaum about his latest (and last) Frank Bascombe novel, The Lay of the LandThe Lay of the LandThe Lay of the Land is a 2006 novel by American author Richard Ford. The novel is the third in a trilogy, which began with The Sportswriter and was followed several years later by Independence Day...
- Interview for public radio in Maine (2006), Maine Humanities Council
- Reviews
- Overview of Ford's recent career, and critique of short stories in The WalrusThe WalrusThe Walrus is a Canadian general interest magazine which publishes long form journalism on Canadian and international affairs, along with fiction and poetry by Canadian writers. It launched in September 2003, as an attempt to create a Canadian equivalent to American magazines such as Harper's, The...
magazine -
- Miscellaneous
- Richard Ford Collection owned by the University of Mississippi Department of Archives and Special Collections.
- Miscellaneous
- Overview of Ford's recent career, and critique of short stories in The Walrus