A Word About Awards

INDEPENDENCE DAY by Richard Ford Awards: PEN/Faulkner Winner 1996, Pulitzer Winner 1996 Nominations: Dublin Longlist 1997, National Book Critics Circle 1995, NY Times Finalist 1995 Dates Read:  February 21, 2009 & July 22, 2020 In Independence Day, we see Frank Bascombe move from his "Fugue Period" to his "Existence Period." Yet, he still remains for me the shallowest deep character I've ever encountered. For all his attempts to "be", Frank still maintains a laissez-faire attitude about his relationships, just letting them play out how they will. He fluctuates from minute-to-minute ready to jump in with both feet to rationalizing why the relationship is doomed to failure. The hardest part is watching this behavior with his son. Frank has such a hard time being real with his son, Paul. They use humor and innuendo to communicate but cannot lay their feelings bare. I think Paul is hungering for real human connection and wants to relate to his father a

TRAIN DREAMS  by Denis Johnson Nomination: Pulitzer 2012 Date Read: July 12, 2020 As if occurring in a dream, Robert Grainier is a salt-of-the-earth, hard-working man who wants nothing more from life than a quiet existence. And if there is any word that can sum up this short novel, it is the word quiet. Grainier goes about the loss of his family and the hard work of re-establishing his life after a terrible fire in a quiet way, requiring no companionship and with no expectations of the future. The beauty of this novel is Denis Johnson's ability to condense what could have been an epic novel into a mere 125 pages. He creates a world where daily life moves slow but the advances of technology move quickly. Grainier is merely an observer to these sweeping changes, taking each in stride and allowing the drastic change they imply simply rush past him. Although some in his world choose to trade in their horse and carriage for a Model T, Grainier sticks with his trusty horses.  As implied

THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS by Ian McEwan Nomination: Booker 1981 Date Read: July 9, 2020 In it's beginning, Mary and Colin seemed like a couple at permanent odds, not speaking to each other yet stuck on holiday together. As the novel progresses, you realize that their beginning was simply recovery from a quarrel. I delighted in reading about their leisurely schedule, eating, napping and city wanderings. I suppose much of that was jealousy as we are still stuck at home amidst this damned virus. Having traveled a great deal, I was surprised they so eagerly followed Robert to an unknown bar. At first, his gesture seemed generous, even saintly, to attend to two lost tourists who he must have been weary of, living in a tourist destination. Perhaps he was drumming up business for the bar and hoped they would return to spend their money in his company. Where this novel took a turn for the unbelievable for me, was the night after, having slept on the streets, they "accidentally" ru

ENDLESS LOVE by Scott Spencer Nomination: National Book 1980 Date Read: July 7, 2020 Endless Love is a novel about what happens when passionate young love meets a boundary-less family and no constraints are put on their teenage love. Poor decisions, one after another, spiral out of control and lead to permanent and irretrievable loss.  David, an entitled and self-involved brat, falls in love with Jade Butterfield. After he essentially moves into the Butterfield house does the family attempt to place some boundaries on their relationship, banning them from seeing each other for a month. Love is a drug and the sudden absence of a hit can lead to painful withdrawal, as it does in the case of David. What I found so striking here is how the Butterfield family, particularly Jade and her mother, Ann, have absolutely no boundaries with each other, yet they section off and hide the most important parts of themselves. This family seems to lack true connection with one another. After David and Ja

THE SPORTSWRITER by Richard Ford Nomination: PEN/Faulkner 1987 Date Read: July 3, 2020 Frank Bascombe, while insightful and with a robust inner dialogue, is comfortable in his divorced bachelorhood. He enjoys his home, his small New Jersey town, his sportswriting career and women. Yet, a lot of loss travels in his wake, particularly the death of his young son Ralph and his divorce from X, who he still respects and confides in. Perhaps Ford intended his Bascombe character to be the Everyman, living out a rapidly diminishing American Dream. For all his seeming self-awareness, though, I found him to be a jerk. He seems unable to be alone with himself, as he constantly seeks to define himself through the eyes of others. Every relationship he encounters- X, Vicki, Walter, Catherine - is purely driven by his own bottomless needs.  All of this aside, Ford is such a rich storyteller, making me long to live in Haddam with its quaint central square and a neighborliness that is hard to find these