Independence Day is a 1995 novel by Richard Ford.
It is the sequel to Ford's 1986 novel The Sportswriter. The story is set on, you guessed it, Independence Day weekend, July 1-4, 1988. His protagonist, Frank Bascombe, has moved on from sports writing to a new career in real estate. Although professionally he has done pretty well, personally he is adrift. He has a girlfriend, Sally, but their relationship is stuck in a rut and Frank feels like they might break up. He still carries a torch for his ex-wife Ann, even though she has decisively moved on with her life, having remarried. He worries about his kids, Paul and Claire, who live in Connecticut with their mother and her husband (Frank still lives in Haddam, New Jersey). Most troublingly, teenaged Paul has gotten into trouble with the law, having shoplifted some condoms from a store and then assaulted the security guard who tried to stop him.
Frank is leaving town for the weekend, to take Paul to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Before leaving, he has to deal with some difficult real estate clients. All the while, he's thinking about the directions his life has taken.
Followed by two more Ford novels starring Frank Bascombe, The Lay of the Land and Let Me Be Frank With You. Obviously, no connection with the film Independence Day or the novelizations thereof.
Tropes:
- "Angry Black Man" Stereotype: Larry McLeod, a "middle-aged former black militant" who rents a house from Frank. He has a gun and "always acts menacing" when Frank comes by, although Frank thinks it's a way to try and avoid paying rent.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Frank is in the middle of a phone call to his girlfriend Sally when he says "I love you." The words leave him startled, even though he said them.Frank: I just realized I wanted to say it to you. And so I said it. I don't know what it means, but I know it doesn't mean nothing.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Frank manages to ignore much of Paul's rude, provocative behavior, but Paul calling his father by his first name crosses a line.Frank: And don't call me Frank, goddammit.
- Call-Forward: Two pages before the end of the book, Paul's friend Carter mentions that he's in the National Guard. He muses that if Bush wins the upcoming election, he might "get a little conflict fired up" and then maybe Carter could see some real action. The Gulf War lasted from September 1990 to February 1991.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: The Markhams are a family of three and Frank's clients, but have taken a maddeningly long time picking a house and tensions are rising after they've rejected dozens of properties that Frank has showed them. Frank meets them at the shabby motel where they've been staying, sees Joe light up a cigarette, and thinks that he's never seen Joe smoke before.
- Contrived Coincidence:
- Frank has stopped for the night at the motel. He is looking around in the motel lounge, when he sees, on the book case, the book of short stories he wrote 20 years ago. The book sold poorly and was remaindered. It causes a little emotional mini-crisis for Frank as he is reminded of his stillborn literary career.
- Paul is hit in the face by a baseball from a pitching machine outside the Baseball Hall of Fame. Who walks right up, as Paul is rolling around on the ground in pain and Frank is panicking? Irv, his stepbrother—son of the man Frank's mother married after her divorce—whom Frank has not seen in a good 20 years.
- Death of a Child: In the backstory (before the first book in fact), Frank's oldest son Ralph died of Reye syndrome. The tragedy still haunts him, and he wonders whether Paul's teenaged acting-out and surliness is connected in some way with Ralph's death.
- Delinquents: In the backstory, Frank was assaulted by some delinquent teens, who conked him on the head with a Pepsi bottle as they zipped past on their mini-bikes. Frank is thinking about this in the uncomfortable context of his son Paul, who is facing trial for shoplifting and assault and battery.
- The Dying Walk: Paul is haunted by the memory of their old basset hound Mr. Toby, who was run over in the street by a car, but managed to stagger to his feet and dash over to Paul and jump into his lap before he died.
- Flashback: A long flashback has Frank thinking about Clair, the coworker at Frank's agency who was murdered. They had a short but passionate affair, which Clair broke off because 1) she was black and he's white, 2) Frank was 17 years her senior, and 3) she found a black man to be a boyfriend that was far more acceptable to her parents. She was engaged to be married when she was killed.
- Flipping the Bird: As Frank and Paul talk outside while they're getting ready to go, Frank sees his younger daughter Clarissa inside, flipping the bird. She isn't sure if the gesture is meant for both of them or just him.
- Foreshadowing: For the whole series. Sally's husband Wally disappeared without a trace one day, and eventually Sally had him declared dead. Frank talks about how weird it would be if Wally showed up, and Sally says she doesn't want to talk about him anymore. In the third Frank Bascombe book, The Lay of the Land, Wally does show up again, after Frank and Sally have gotten married.
- Greasy Spoon: Frank is part-owner of a roadside hot dog stand. One scene has him stop by and shoot the breeze with Larry, his talkative and mildly racist co-owner who works the stand.
- Missing White Woman Syndrome: In the backstory, Clair Devane, a black woman who worked as a realtor for Frank's agency, was raped and murdered when she went out to show some people a house. The case remains unsolved. Vonda the secretary says that the FBI would be all over the case if Claire had been a white woman, but Frank thinks to himself that the FBI did look at the case and found it to be most likely "simple murder" and not a federal crime.
- Named in the Sequel: In The Sportswriter, Frank is so traumatized by his divorce that he can only refer to his ex-wife as "X". In this book she gets a name, Ann.
- Present Tense Narrative: Told in present tense throughout, as Frank narrates his busy holiday weekend.
- Punny Name: Paul's adolescent, off-putting sense of humor leads him to make jokes that contain names like Dr. Hugh G. Rection and Dr. Lew D. Zyres.
- Sequel: To The Sportswriter, following Frank from his late 30s into his mid-40s.
- Sexy Secretary: Vonda, the secretary at the realtor office where Frank works, is "bulgy-busted" and wears "bright-colored, ludicrously skimpy cocktail dresses to work." She flirts heavily with Frank and he thinks she's looking for some Friends with Benefits arrangement, but he has no intentions of pursuing one.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: As Frank is showing the Markhams a house he sees a neighbor, "a young mom, in blue jeans cut off mid-thigh", and a shirt "cinched in a Marilyn Monroe knot just below her breasts." If that's not obvious enough, a little bit later Frank sees the neighbor inside her home, walking across her front picture window totally in the nude, "a big protuberant pair of white breasts leading the way." Joe Markham, preoccupied by his dissatisfaction with the house, misses this completely.
- Theme Naming: Frank chats with a hotel cook named Char, who says that her full name is Charlane and she has older sisters named Charlotte and Charmayne. Her father's name? Charles.
- Title Drop Chapter: All the chapters are numbered except for the last one, when Frank, back home on July 4, does some more contemplating about his life. That chapter is titled "Independence Day."
