Rock Springs

Richard Ford

Oct 2010 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

About this ebook

Ten “beautifully imagined and crafted stories” of the American West by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Independence Day (Joyce Carol Oates).
 
In these ten exquisite stories, Richard Ford explores the wind-scrubbed landscape of the American West and the guarded hopes and gnawing loneliness of the people who live there: a refugee from justice driving across Wyoming with his daughter and girlfriend in a stolen Mercedes; a boy watching his family dissolve in a night of tragicomic violence; and two men and a woman swapping hard-luck stories in a frontier bar as they try to sweeten their luck.
 
In the tradition of Raymond Carver, Rock Springs is a masterpiece of taut narration, cleanly chiseled prose, and empathy so generous that it feels like a kind of grace. “The finest of these stories achieve luminous moments, moments with potential to change how the reader sees and thinks” (The New York Times Book Review).

Ratings and reviews

As much as anything this book is about loss, of family, of place, of purpose and for some a loss of hope. It is narrated through the view of a 15 year old boy but filtered with the experiences of a 65 year old adult who has bumped into a redemptive life and learned the value of gratitude, for even those who may not deserve it.

About the author

Richard Ford was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1944. He has published five novels and two previous collections of stories. His novel, Independence Day was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and, two weeks later, the PEN/Faulkner award for Fiction, the first time the same book has won both prizes.