 First edition | |
| Author | Richard Ford |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Louie (design), Rick Lovell (illustration) |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Vintage |
Publication date | March 1986 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 375 pp |
| ISBN | 0-394-74325-3 |
| OCLC | 13093238 |
| 813/.54 19 | |
| LC Class | PS3556.O713 S6 1986 |
| Preceded by | The Ultimate Good Luck |
| Followed by | Rock Springs |
The Sportswriter is a 1986 novel by Richard Ford, and the first of five books of fiction to feature the protagonist Frank Bascombe. [1] 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-winning Independence Day , published in 1995. After the third installment in the series, titled The Lay of the Land , was published in 2006, the three books together are sometimes identified as "The Bascombe Trilogy." Ford called them "The Bascombe Novels." [2] In 2014, a fourth book in the series, titled Let Me Be Frank With You, was published. [3] The latest book in the Bascombe series, titled Be Mine, was published in 2023.
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In 2007, HBO announced that it was adapting the books into a six-hour HBO miniseries, [4] but HBO subsequently dropped their option, and any future plans to adapt the novels for the screen have been shelved. [1]
When it appeared in 1986, The Sportswriter was Ford's third published novel.
