“It is rare,” writes Yann Plougastel in Le Monde dated tomorrow (August 29th), “for a writer to conform so little to the idea we have of what a writer should look like. With his washed-out blue eyes, broad forehead and tall stature, nimble angler’s hands and legs like a tired cowboy (?), Richard Ford … might have played in a Clint Eastwood film. Or worked at a service station in a lost corner of Missouri. ” Or played bass with Bruce Springsteen, apparently. Qu’ils sont romantiques, ces Français!
“Richard Ford became a writer by accident,” Plougastel continues. “After a bad boy period in which he experienced prison, he read a lot of Faulkner and Hemingway, and through the beautiful eyes of Kristina, still his companion, began to note down sentences, scraps of dialogue, then to assemble the puzzle, without any preconceived idea. Five novels, three short story collections and a Pulitzer prize later, Ford is considered one of the greatest American writers of his generation.”
The autumn issue of the Dublin Review of Books (due mid-September) will feature a long essay on /interview with Richard Ford conducted by Kevin Stevens.
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