Independence Day

Summary

Over a long Fourth of July weekend in suburban New Jersey, real estate agent Frank Bascombe shows houses to a difficult client and drives his troubled teenage son to sports halls of fame in an attempt to reconnect. Ford uses Frank's reflective, self questioning narration to explore midlife, divorce, civic life, and what he calls the "Existence Period" of cautious adult endurance. The novel deepens the Bascombe project into a sustained meditation on contemporary American manhood.