In his newest novel, Be Mine, Richard Ford writes what sounds like a memoir as Frank Bascombe recounts a car trip with his son Paul. At 47, Paul has been diagnosed with ALS, called “Al’s” in their surprisingly light conversation. Seventy-four-year-old Frank has become the caretaker, though he is frequently interrupted with advice by phone from Paul’s sister Clarice who differs with her father’s decisions. The mother is dead as is a brother who died in childhood.
The reader is taken in with Frank’s account that feels like all the parts of a family car trip. Old family jokes are repeated with both men already knowing the punch lines. Memories are recounted and argued over. They miss signage for the Hilton Garden and Denny’s at exit 412 and then have to backtrack. They find an unsatisfactory motel so they seek another that turns out not to be any better than the first. Paul brings out his puppet Otto to perform his ventriloquism, and the only mouth that moves is his own. Their vehicle is diverted when there is an accident up ahead. Just one more family trip with laughter, arguments, reminiscences, and decisions. Yet, over it all, hangs Paul’s increasing difficulty with movement and the knowledge that up ahead is death.
This book is the newest in a series about Frank Bascombe, but it stands alone is such a way that the reader isn’t conscious of anything missing if she has not read the others. I did need to remind myself occasionally that it was a novel, not a memoir.
Richard Ford, not Frank Bascombe as I began to write, will be at the Mississippi Book Festival on August 19. Be Mine was #5 in Mississippi Reads for last week. It’s worth your time.