SOURCE: "Frank Bascombe Awakes to Lessons of Independence," in The Christian Science Monitor, July 3, 1995, p. 13.

[In the following review, Rubin praises Ford's Independence Day as "a fully realized portrait of modern American life as filtered through the mind and heart of a unique, yet typical American man."]

It's the early summer of 1988, year of the Dukakis-Bush presidential election and five years since we've last heard from Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of Richard Ford's memorable novel The Sportswriter.

Frank, who started out as an aspiring novelist with a book of short stories to his credit, then opted for journalism and became a sportswriter, has recently changed careers again [in Independence Day]. He is now a realtor. Forty-four years old, divorced, still living in Haddam, New Jersey, he feels he is entering a new, rather cheerless, phase of his life, which he calls his "existence period:" a time when unrealistic...