AN EVENING WITH RICHARD FORD

The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance and SPACE welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford for a celebration of his first work of long-form nonfiction: Between Them, a stirring memoir of his parents. 

The evening will include a reading and on-stage conversation between Ford and MWPA executive director Joshua Bodwell.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

How is it that we come to consider our parents as people with rich and intense lives that include but also exclude us? Richard Ford’s parents—Edna, a feisty, pretty Catholic-school girl with a difficult past; and Parker, a sweet-natured, soft-spoken traveling salesman—were rural Arkansans born at the turn of the twentieth century. Married in 1928, they lived “alone together” on the road, traveling throughout the South. Eventually they had one child, born late, in 1944.

For Ford, the questions of what his parents dreamed of, how they loved each other and loved him become a striking portrait of American life in the mid-century. Between Them is his vivid image of where his life began and where his parents’ lives found their greatest satisfaction.

Bringing his celebrated candor, wit, and intelligence to this most intimate and mysterious of landscapes—our parents’ lives—the award-winning storyteller and creator of the iconic Frank Bascombe delivers an unforgettable exploration of memory, intimacy, and love.

ADVANCE PRAISE
“By any standards, this is a singular volume, as peculiarly personal as it is slim…a subtle, careful testament to devotion and a son’s love for his parents.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Every page of this little remembrance teems with Ford’s luxuriant prose, his moving and tender longing for his parents, and his affecting and intimate portrait of two people simply living life as best they can.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)