Almanac Books: The Final Frank Bascombe novel

 

 

The Footy Almanac has given me many fine things.

 

A magnificent, constantly evolving library of mostly short prose; a hugely encouraging platform to share my writing; friendships; North Fitzroy Arms lunches which went well beyond sunset.

 

But among the great gifts is the Frank Bascombe series. First published in 1986, I’d heard of it but only read it following praise from contributors on this site. So, since 2013 I’ve read the entire series three times, including about five years ago when I was on the couch for a week following minor foot surgery.

 

I think about it more than is perhaps healthy. Like all worthy art it’s how it remains with me deeply for days that I love the most.

 

I want to go to New Jersey and visit the real places referenced in the novels and to try to imagine those invented by Richard Ford. Haddam. Sea-Clift. Toms River.

 

I think about the narrator and protagonist Frank Bascombe whom we met in The Sportwriter and then pursued across Independence Day, The Lay of the Land, and Let Me Be Frank With You, the terribly titled (but forgiven) collection of sparse short stories.

 

In the next few weeks, the final Frank Bascombe novel called Be Mine will be published. I’ve ordered my copy and imagine I’ll read it in a day or so. I’m both as excited as I’ve ever been about a novel but also already grieving because it’s the end.

 

Like much great art the series means many things to me. Frank is funny, astute, awful, and inspiring. Same as most of us.

 

Last Saturday in between listening to a couple episodes of BBC Radio 4’s most excellent Soul Music on The Carpenters and Toto I recounted to my wife Claire what I knew of Be Mine. Not just because I was a glass or two or shiraz through the evening, I’d a few tears. It was the first time I’d cried before encountering a story.

 

This was about my gratitude and anticipation.

 

Frank captured my feelings on this way back in The Sportwriter when he said, ‘We are past the end of things now, but I don’t want to leave.’

 

Thanks to the wise, generous folk of The Footy Almanac who prompted my life-long reading of the series.

 

 

You can read more from Mickey Randall Here

 

 

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