SOURCE: Walker, Elinor Ann. “Infinite Remoteness in Rock Springs.” In Richard Ford, pp. 118-32. New York: Twayne Publishers, 2000.

In the following essay, Walker elucidates how images of loneliness and vast space allow for an exploration of human fallibility and connection in Ford's Rock Springs.

Richard Ford's Rock Springs (1987) includes stories published in magazines and journals between 1982 and 1987. A bleak and uncompromising look at lives changed by choice and circumstance, the collection features many first-person male voices whose stories evoke themes present in Ford's other works. For example, Russ, the narrator of “Sweethearts,” acknowledges another character's empty moment (see chapter 4 on The Sportswriter) and discusses how words may fail (see chapters 4 and 5 on “Great Falls” and Wildlife). Though certainly not in any kind of southern literary sense, place exerts some influence here; the wildness of the physical landscape corresponds to the unwieldy lives of the characters. Cars, trains, and...