After publishing two novels, Richard Ford decided in 1981 to abandon literature to work as a sports journalist. But when the New York magazine he was writing for, Inside Sport, folded in 1982 he returned to fiction with The Sportswriter, a story of a crisis in the life of a sports journalist following the death of his son, first published in 1986.
He talks to John Mullan about the language of his narrator, Frank Bascombe, the importance of doubt in fiction, the suppleness of the present tense and answers questions from the Book club audience.
Reading list
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford (Bloomsbury)
