Richard Ford – Cannonball Read 17

Sorry for your Trouble

Sorry for your Trouble by Richard Ford

May 4, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

I was in a grad class in 2005-2006 in the two semesters during and then after Hurricane Katrina. And this was a little bit after the south Asian tsunami that killed 200,000+ people. The professor talked about both events as the kinds of things that would become touchstones in literature, both in terms of subject and in terms of reference points in the coming years. There have been dozens of books, movies, and tv shows I can think of about Hurricane Katrina, and significantly fewer […]

“For, how else to seize such an instant? How to shout out into the empty air just the right words, and on cue? Frame a moment to last a lifetime?

January 28, 2018 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is book two of the Frank Bascombe series by Richard Ford. I think it would more or less make sense to read these out of order, as I was actually thinking of doing, but regardless, they are more or less in order. This series reminds me of the projects of several other writers, especially male American writers where an everyman type American guy stands in for the author’s desire to cast a light on late 20th century American white maleness. This isn’t inherently a […]

Small Nonfiction/Small Fiction

August 26, 2017 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

84 Charing Cross Road- Helene Hanff 5/5 This is an incredibly charming book and was even a literary sensation that I didn’t really ever know about. More about that in the follow up. The set up is that Helene Hanff, a television screenwriter with a love of nonfiction, especially British diaries, writes letters to a British book shop asking for various books. As she gets her books, as she writes her thanks, and as the book shop returns her correspondence, a relationship develops especially […]

Divorced Dad Proto Character

The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

January 16, 2017 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

I THINK this is a very 1980s novel. It’s a very male novel too, but it’s not really very chauvinistic or sexist. I was talking about it with my girlfriend and she suggested it might just be a very northeastern novel. I am not sure which, but what I mean by this is that the main character focuses a lot of energy thinking about people’s ethnic background (so lots of “Pollacks,””Jews,” and “Negroes”) and how it tracks with or doesn’t track with their behavior. One […]

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Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
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Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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