Be Mine (2023)
By Richard Ford
Ecco/HarperCollins, 342 pages.
★★★★★
Many literary critics (and New Yorker readers) cite John Updike’s Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom tetralogy as recent history’s finest. I admired the “Rabbit” books, but I might give the nod to the four Frank Bascombe novels penned by Richard Ford.
His first three Frank Bascombe novels–The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land–revolved around the fictional town of Haddam, New Jersey. Some–especially women–find Ford (and Updike) too phallocentric. Be Mine, Ford’s fourth take on Bascombe, contains locker-room talk and male fantasies, but with a very different focus. Frank is in his 70s and knows that his clock is ticking and that his past hypermasculine ways have betrayed him. He’s twice divorced, disinterested in the real estate game, and is caring for his 47-year-old son Paul, who has been stricken with rapidly advancing ALS (“Lou Gehring’s Disease”).
Many of you are probably thinking, “Great! A cheery book about a grumpy old chauvinist and his son who is dying just about the worst way a human being can do so. No thank you!” That would be your loss. Be Mine is poignant and deals with big themes such as guilt, parent-child conflict, when to pivot, how to cope, and (perhaps) a last hurrah. Yet, it is also both a wise and funny book. Frank has been a heel at times, but he doesn’t hesitate to turn down an offer from former partner Mike Mahoney in order to be Paul’s nurse. “Mike” is a sketch in his own right, a Tibetan-born property mogul pumped full of Jersey wise-guy attitude.
Frank is done with all that and pulls some strings via an old flame, Dr. Catherine Flaherty, to get Paul seen by the Mayo Clinic. He goes all in and moves to Rochester, Minnesota, home of the Mayo. Frank is impressed, but retains his sarcastic edge:
One floor below us is the “subway,” a great, tubular shopping arcade where loved ones of the sick, dying and recovering can purchase pizzas, chili dogs and hoagies, while browsing for Mayo-themed tchotchkes and mediocre Norwegian art to take back to Hibbing. It would be completely plausible to reside inside Mayo, like Quasimodo in Notre-Dame, and never have to die…. [A]s much as it’s committed to the healing mysteries, Mayo is equally committed to people-moving by the multitudes, which produces an ether of kinetic, germ-free positivism ….
Paul is a chip off the paternal block, sarcastic, bitter, and drawn to the surreal, macabre, or kitschy. He calls his father “Lawrence,” wordplay on Florence Nightingale, and is by turns enthusiastic and verbose, insulting or silent. He wears a Kansas City Chiefs get-up, listens to the over-the top Anthony Newley, grills his father about Ann, his mother and Frank’s first wife.
ALS is fatal, so what can Frank do for Paul? Well, of course one would buy a gas-hog , poorly heated Dodge camper van, and depart on a winter trip to see Mt. Rushmore! That’s after Frank spends the hours Paul is at Mayo contemplating Heidegger or visiting a massage parlor where he drops $200 per visit for the company of 34-year-old Betty Duong Tran.
That’s unsettling, but a subtheme of Be Mine is that a lot of Americans are seriously tacky. Paul loves the absurdity of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Neither is enamored by the Fawning Buffalo, a run-down Indian casino:
The glowing but uncrowded lobby opens out directly to a cavernous, murky, low-lit gaming pavilion, a sea of slots where only a handful of players… are goosing the machines, sipping free margaritas and smoking... Poker, roulette, bingo, and dice pits are far in the rear…. A gray haze drifts … into the lobby, around the sides of which is the “Naughty Spot Gift Boutique” with a red neon sign, and a few other un-patronized storefronts–a Condom and Tattoo shop, an exotic bakery, a Crafts Centre with a window of baskets and knock-off tribal trappings for sale.... [N]othing here is living up to the billboard hype. Possibly it never did. Tom Jones is singing strenuously over everything. “Woah… whoa… whoa… whoa… whoa… whoa.
All the while Frank battles his Log Cabin Republican daughter who insists Paul should be with her in Scottsdale. (Both find Clarissa obnoxious.) As you might expect, Mt. Rushmore doesn’t live up to its hype either. Or does it? Snark and tragedy aside, Be Mine is about letting go and what the living can learn from the dying. Does Frank find redemption? Far be it for me to tell. This is a smart book from which you can glean many conclusions.
Rob Weir
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