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This is the end of the road for an American Everyman named Frank Bascombe, probably the most fascinating recurring character in recent literature.
Writer Richard Ford first introduced Bascombe in "The Sportswriter" in 1986, then turned him into a New Jersey real estate salesman in "Independence Day," which was the first novel to win the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award, in 1996.
Ford's masterful third Bascombe novel -- "The Lay of the Land" (Alfred A. Knopf, 485 pages, $26.95) -- has just been released a decade later and the 62-year-old Maine writer says it is the final entry into this series. Ford, one of this country's most candid and erudite literary writers, visited Seattle last week and discussed his new novel and its ever-reflective narrator over grilled marlin and San Pellegrino water at Sazerac restaurant.
Seattle P-I: When did you decide this would be the last Frank Bascombe novel, and why?
Ford: It happened during the period when I was editing the book. It seemed such an exhaustive book that I thought to myself: I could never mount this effort again for this character. I guess I want to follow the model of Sandy Koufax (Hall of Fame pitcher for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers) -- leave when you feel you are at the top of your game. I felt that I was working as hard as I could on this book. It made me ill for a year from the stress of trying to get all the words and thoughts in the right place. I was shocked when my body went into a tailspin, but I plowed on.
Were you relieved when you finished the book and figured out that this was indeed the end for you and Frank?
There was no ah-ha moment where I thought: I'll never write other words about Frank again. But then I've learned that the real test of a book is not the finish but in the middle -- that's the place where you can do the most to make it better.
You write in such detail in the novel about Frank's prostate cancer and his treatment at the Mayo Clinic. That raises the question: Do you have prostate cancer? Or how did you come up with all that detail?
No, I don't have prostate cancer. I read some books on the subject, but I am a living and breathing guy who, like everybody else, is scared to death about that stuff. Plus, I'm hypochondriacal -- I get obsessed about such things -- so one of the things I wanted to do was let Frank take over those traits.
I will say, too, that I went in for my regular physical in 2005 at the Mayo Clinic but I was so caught up in this book and its subject that I decided I wouldn't have my prostate checked that year. I wanted to finish this book and I was afraid if I found out some bad news about my prostate, then I wouldn't finish it. So I made a little pact with the devil -- I would wait a year for a prostate check and hope and pray that the doctors would find nothing.
In what ways are you most similar to Frank, and in what way most different?
He's a lot nicer than I am, at least until his illness. There are some similarities -- we're both Democrats, both Southerners who left the South to go to college. And we both use narrative as a form of reflection.
Do you know Frank so well that you could answer questions for him in his voice?
No, and I'll tell you why. Frank is not there for me in the way that he is for the reader who sees him fully formed on the page. But I always have to be willing to change things about him, sometimes small, sometimes not. I do not participate in his reality. ... Without me, there's no him.
You and your wife, Kristina, now live mostly in Maine after many years of living in New Orleans. Have you been back in the city and what are your thoughts on its plight?
That was our home and we try to be of use in that city, but we're very disheartened. On the day after Katrina, we took an apartment there, then we rented a house and now we are buying another one. The situation in New Orleans is tragic and infuriating and particularly depressing for someone with a long-term stake in the city. With everyone who is still there, it's like living on after someone very close to you dies.
What writing do you still want to do?
I'm working on a small novel set in Canada. I've long been a Canada enthusiast -- Kristina and I were just hunting birds in Alberta and then down in Montana where we used to live. The novel is about a man who was involved in the right-to-work movement in Washington state in the 1950s and 1960s and is involved in a bombing. He flees to Saskatchewan where he runs a small hotel. Two decades later, two men are dispatched to assassinate him. It's more plotted, much shorter than "The Lay of the Land," maybe 200 pages. That will be my tenth book and may be enough.
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