P OETRY SLAM The Ann Arbor Poetry Slam closes out its season July 2 at the Heidelberg Club. Poets will com- pete for cash and spots on the National Slam team Open mike before and after. Doors open at 7:0pm 3 cover. ARTS Wednesday f Jdune 19, 19967 Pulitzer winner, 'U' alum Richard Ford to return to Ann Arbor, read at Borders By Dean Bakopoulos thinking." I)aily Arts Writer The decision to * When writer Richard Ford comes to Ann Arbor, "Independence Day he won't be on foreign soil. Ford was an assistant nation of any kind professor in the University's English department in Ford says, "I think the mid-70s, working here while his wife did her as a kind of tone of Ph.D. work. He's lived right on South University allows me to do a street, and still has plenty of friends in Ann Arbor. Plus, he returns to town every year to FREVI EWX give a lecture to the Michigan Richa Society of Journalism Fellows. Literary Fgagement So, needless to say, he's looking Monday, June 24 forward to his visit. Borders * Ford will be at the Borders on 7:30 p.m. E. Liberty Monday night, reading from his Pulitzer distinctly American Prize-winning novel, "Independence Day" - the book is full of mino hero of which, Frank Bascombe, is a University ferent phases of alum who makes references to distinctly Ann American dream, an Arbor traditions like love in the Arb and "The patriotic holiday, so Victors" fight song. But most University grads Ford said indeed the will not aspire for a future like Bascombe's, who, tinctly American th in the 1986 novel "The Sportswriter," went July 4th setting, but through a midlife crisis of epic proportions. In place in 1988, an el "Independence Day" Bascombe returns, having oft-discussed in the ivenup the writing life and settling down to a real "I think the book estate job in upper middle-class New Jersey. cal book, in that it ext With his return, and a marvelous return it is, American, or at least many critics have heralded Bascombe as one of the average American, is greatest American literary characters, ranking him actual electoral proc with the likes of Updike's Harry Angstrom or same time American Miller's Willy Loman. Ford says that wasn't his ical forces themselve intention. "When I finished 'The Sportswriter' I forces of democracy, had no intention of bringing Frank Bascombe back There are other r again. But I found that in a rather accretive sort of novel on the July 4t way, that voice kept creeping back into my way of to want to set up a n bring Bascombe back in " does not stem from a fasci- with his own character. Rather, about Frank Bascombe chiefly voice. A tone of voice which number of things which I feel might be appealing to the reader. For instance, things like making moral judge- ments, being mirthful, show- ing sympathy, being attrac- tively self-effacing." Bascombe is a key reason that the novel is being labeled by the literary community. The r characters, all of them in dif- losing out on the mythical d is set during the nation's most such a label seems inevitable. e novel does deal in some dis- iemes, not only because of the it because the novel also takes ection year, and the election is novel. turned out to be a kind of politi- emplifies how much the average this character who represents an divorced or distanced from the ess" Ford said. "And yet at the s are intensely involved in polit- s - the forces of economy, the the forces of sociology." reasons Ford chose to set his h weekend. "I'm often tempted tovel around a holiday because I think most Americans have very - vivid, personal memories of holidays," Ford said. "And if I can engage in a reader's personal memories, then I think I have part of the persuasive work done." Plus, Ford's themes in the novel also heavily focus on an individ- ual's personal and emotional indepen- dence. "I wanted to define indepen- dence in a slightly different way than I thought its conventional understand- .ing was." Whatever Ford's motives in writing the novel were, the readers caught on quickly. "Independence Day" is a best- seller, and it's also won Ford this year's PEN/Faulkner and Pulitzer awards. Plus, many critics are welcoming Ford into the ranks of the great contempo- rary American novelists, joining liter- ary lions like John Updike and Saul Bellow. Ford said that's not how he views things. "I don't have that strati- fied sense of accomplishment. I would never consider myself of being on a plane with them. They're heroes of Pulitzer winner, University alum Richard Ford relaxes in tweed. mine and I don't compete with them, nor do I aspire to be as good or better than them. he says the writer's trade is "very, very, very dif- All's I try to do is be the best I can be." ficult," one in which the failure rate is very high. Successful or not, Ford said, the writer's life Any advice for younger, aspiring writers?"Sure," should be viewed as a "privledged one" "To Ford quips,"Talk yourself out ofit,if you can." He choose to be a writer," he said, "is basically a life tells young writers to weigh all their other in which you aspire to do what Chekhov did. I options first, before they decide to dedicate their mean, what can be more wonderful?" Still, Ford lives to being a practicioner of words. says the writing life is one in which disappoint- Fortunately for his many readers, Ford was ment and discouragement are commonplace, and unable to do that. r r Richard Ford's 'Independence Day' captures essence of American condition By Dean Bakopoulos Daily Arts Writer the crisis of epicT now remains in w If the folks who give out the Pulitzer Prize for fiction use closing paragraphs as one of their E'V EW deciding factors, it's no wonder that Richard Ford Independence Day as this year's choice. Ford's "Independence By Richard Ford ay" pulled in this year's Pulitzer (during the 'intage 1996 same two-week stretch in which he lassoed the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction), and the closing paragraph of the winning novel is a testament to Ford's rank as one of broad cast of cha America's most adept prose practicioners. Emotional, yet restrained, affects Frank. Sot full of meaning, yet subtle - this is how Ford ends "Independence sneak their way in Day." As a matter of fact, it's how he writes the whole damn thing. additions by Ford, "Independence Day" catches up with Frank Bascombe, hero of of characters who Ford's acclaimed 1986 novel, "The Sportswriter." Frank happens to ing portrait of the be a graduate of the University of Michigan, and often recalls his have hope, but m "Ann Arbor days." directly or indirec Frank has since given up his career as a sportswriter, as well as and possibility to 1 srned his back on writing short stories. Now, he simply sells real In his vast and estate in Haddam, NJ, although the career move has taken only some only on plot, but r of the complexity out of his life. His ex-wife has since remarried aYale man, and his son Paul, now 15, has been charged with shoplifting Magtnum con-A doms. Among Paul's quirks are his inex- plicable dog barking, a violent temper E E ~ M & E and other psychological problems. So, Y E EXA S & E Frank plans to take his son on a Fourth R)Ib RLHM L f July weekend trip. Armed with a copy f Emerson's "Self-Reliance," he hopes CALVIN KL to get to the bottom of his son's prob- e y e w e lems, all the while establishing a father- son relationship that would fill a void in S T U D E N T D I both father and son's lives. He's through 3 S S porportions he suffered in "The Sportswriter," and hat he calls the "Existence Period": "The part that comes after the big struggle that led to the big blowup." On this "Independence Day" weekend, a time Frank calls an "observance of human possibility," Frank must deal not only with his problematic son, but also with a semi-relation- ship goitg semi-awry, stubborn and despairing realty clients, and a UnVC aracters whose existence somehow metimes the minor characters who Heall to Frank's holiday seem superfluous but as a whole they make up a cast (Of re represent a very real and very touch- average American's condition. Some ost have lost it; and many of them tly rely on Frank to return the hope * their lives. far-reaching novel, Ford relies not ather on a series of observations and ponderings though the eyes of Frank Bascombe, a distinctly American voice who, with "Independence Day," joins the ranks of some of the great American literary characters. Names like Nick Carraway, Harry Angstrom and Augie March come to mind as similar literary charac- ters who have similarily captured the American condition. With the distinctly American "Independence Day," Ford has vaulted himself into the frefornt of contemnorarv A mercn novelits. YE G LASSES AxE GIORGIO ARMANI LEIN r> S, a r SC OU NTS Ic u @ *4 Think You're Pregnant? * Free Pregnancy Test - Information about pregnancy K-ja I and options WASHTENAW Cleary - COMPLETELY CONFIDENTIAL Coiiege Pregnancy Counseling Center PACKARD Women Helping Women Ypsilanti (313) 434-3088 (24 hours) Nigh School 2950 Packard, Ypsilanti, MI (1 Block East of Golfside)