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.