She Treads Softly: Be Mine

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Be Mine

Be Mine by Richard Ford
6/13/23; 352 pages
HarperCollins
Frank Bascombe Novel #5

Be Mine by Richard Ford is a highly recommended literary novel and the fifth one featuring Frank Bascombe.

Frank, 74, is dealing with his own aging when he finds himself becoming the caretaker for his son Paul, 47, who has been diagnosed with ALS. They start their trip in freezing Rochester, Minnesota, where Paul is part of a study at the Mayo Clinic. The two decide to take a field trip for Valentines Day and travel in the winter through MN and SD to Rapid City to see Mount Rushmore. The two are both facing their own mortality while trying to create the happiness they can with what they have.

While the prose can soar and showcases the intelligence and insight that Ford is known for, this can also be a depressing novel. Certainly there are entertaining and funny parts, but the over all tone is melancholy. The narrative is told through Frank's point-of-view and he is a contemplative man, reflecting on his life, mortality, thoughts about happiness and the events transpiring around him. He remains a totally unique character in literature.

The Frank Bascombe novels are all centered around traveling during a holiday. For those who may want to read all of them The Sportswriter happens around Easter, Independence Day occurs around the 4th of July, The Lay of the Land is set during Thanksgiving, and Let Me Be Frank With You transpires during Christmas, and Be Mine takes place around Valentine’s Day.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.