Independence Day (novel)
Independence Day | |
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First edition cover | |
Author | Richard Ford |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | June 13, 1995 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
Pages | 464 pp |
ISBN | 0-679-49265-8 |
OCLC | 31901250 |
Dewey Decimal | 813/.54 20 |
LC Class | PS3556.O713 I53 1995 |
Preceded by | The Sportswriter |
Followed by | The Lay of the Land |
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.
Independence Day follows Frank Bascombe, a New Jersey real estate agent, through the titular holiday weekend as he visits his ex-wife, his troubled son, his current lover, the tenants of one of his properties, and some clients of his who have been having trouble finding the perfect house. It focuses in particular on a car trip with his son to the Basketball and Baseball halls of fame. It was incredibly well-reviewed, with Michiko Kakutani writing in The New York Times that "Mr. Ford has galvanized his reputation as one of his generation's most eloquent voices." [1] Similar in theme to John Updike's Rabbit novels, Independence Day is a pastoral meditation on a man reaching middle age and assessing his place in life and the greater world.
- ↑ New York Times, 13th June 1995 http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/13/books/books-of-the-times-afloat-in-the-turbulence-of-the-american-dream.html