Richard Ford - Let Me Be Frank With You

“How’s your son Ralph, Mr. Bascombe?” He means my son Paul. They knew each other long ago in school. It is a sweetness that brings tears to my eyes.

“He’s fine, Ezekiel. He’s just fine. I’ll tell him you asked.”

“Is he still…” Ezekiel looks at me oddly. He’s sensed his mistake and is transfixed. It is the finest of fine with me.

“He is ,” I say. “He’s still in Kansas City. He runs a garden supply out there.” I touch my fingertip to my eye’s corner.

“He was always good with that,” Ezekiel says,

“He was,” I lie.

“All right then.” Ezekiel’s moving. “Santa’s gotta get on back to his sleigh and be flyin’.”

“You do that,” I say. He shakes my hand in his large, amazingly soft one. That is what we have a chance to say to each other on Christmas Eve. A few good words.

Then he goes. And I go. The day we have briefly shared is saved.

My thanks to my great friend Daniel Halpern for encouraging the writing of this book. My thanks to my dear one Amanda Urban for being this book’s advocate, and mine. My thanks, as well, to the wonderful Dale Rohrbaugh for invaluable and resourceful help. My thanks, also, to Laurie McGee, the best copy editor a boy could have. And thanks to Eleanor Kriseman for precious assistance in many phases of this book’s life.

My thanks to Janet Henderson for long conversations over time, which vitally informed one of the stories here. My thanks to the Gros Morne Summer Music artists for playing Copland for me in Newfoundland. My thanks to my friend Philip Levine for his knowledge of obdurate pigs.

Several friends who inspired and affected this book’s origins have sadly departed and are sorely missed: Holly Eley, whom I thank for her great wit; Jeff Levin, whom I thank for his refinements, humor, and ingenuity; Bill Wyman, for his dear affection.

I also thank my lifelong friend Charlie Scott for being exemplary in life. And I thank most of all Kristina Ford for her countless grace notes.

— RF

Photograph © by Greta Rybus

RICHARD FORDis the author of the Bascombe novels, which include The Sportswriter and its sequels— Independence Day , the first novel to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and The Lay of the Land —as well as the New York Times bestselling novel Canada and the short story collections Rock Springs and A Multitude of Sins , which contain many widely anthologized stories. He lives in Boothbay, Maine, with his wife, Kristina Ford.

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