''The Sportswriter'' is a

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

Richard Ford Richard Ford (born February 16, 1944) is an American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel '' The Sportswriter'' and its sequels, '' Independence Day'', ''The Lay of the Land'' and ''Let Me Be Frank With You'', and t ...

, and the first of four books of fiction to feature the protagonist Frank Bascombe. In ''The Sportswriter'', Bascombe is portrayed as a failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an existential crisis following the death of his son. The sequel to ''The Sportswriter'' is the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

-winning ''

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Man ...

'', published in 1995. After the third installment in the series, titled ''

The Lay of the Land ''The Lay of the Land'' is a 2006 novel by American author Richard Ford. The novel is the third in what is now a four-part series, preceded by the novels '' The Sportswriter'' (1986) and '' Independence Day'' (1995); and followed by ''Let Me Be ...

'', was published in 2006, the three books together are sometimes identified as "The Bascombe Trilogy." Ford called them "The Bascombe Novels." In 2014, a fourth book in the series, titled '' Let Me Be Frank With You,'' was published. In 2007,

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

announced that it was adapting the books into a six-hour

miniseries, but HBO subsequently dropped their option, and any future plans to adapt the novels for the screen have been shelved. When it appeared in 1986, ''The Sportswriter'' was Ford's third published novel. ''The Sportswriter'' is mentioned several times in

Lee Ranaldo Lee Mark Ranaldo (born February 3, 1956) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, guitarist, writer, visual artist and record producer, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth (guitar and vocals). In 2004, ''Rolling ...

's ''JRNLS80s''.

Awards and nominations

The novel was named one of ''Time'' magazine's five best books of 1986 and was a finalist for the

PEN/Faulkner Award The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Fi ...

for Fiction. In 2005, ''Time'' also named it one of the 100 best novels in English from 1923 to 2010.

References

External links

Richard Ford discusses ''The Sportswriter''
on the BBC's

World Book Club ''World Book Club'' is a radio programme on the BBC World Service. Each edition of the programme, which is broadcast on the first Saturday of the month with repeats into the following Monday, features a famous author discussing one of his or her ...

1986 American novels Novels by Richard Ford Novels set in New Jersey Novels about writers PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction-winning works {{1980s-novel-stub