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3.5 

Between Them

By Richard Ford
Between Them by Richard Ford digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

From American master Richard Ford, a memoir: his first work of nonfiction, a stirring narrative of memory and parental love

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.

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10 Reviews

3.5
“I listened to this audiobook narrated by Christian Baskous because of a review by Jennifer Levasseur published in America Magazine. This is Ford's first book-length work of nonfiction and gives us an intimate window into the rather ordinary lives of his parents. The beauty in the unremarkable relationships is what intrigued me. Written in two parts separated by decades, Ford combines in this memoir an essay he wrote after her mother's death in 1987 with a new memoir about his father who died after his sixteenth birthday. The memoir gives evidence of how deeply he thought about the lives of each parent, what to share, what to withhold, and how much any of us really knows about our parents. He literally came between them when he was conceived after fifteen years of them travelling together on his father's calls to customers buying starch from him. But he also reflects that what was most vital about his parents existed between them only, a lesson that has the power to shake our view of the world. I appreciate when others share what they've learned from their mistakes because I cannot possibly make them all to learn them myself. His wistful admittance to the one thing he wished he hadn't said to his mother taught me a good lesson about the end of life and listening well when people we love share something we don't want to hear. A good listen from an excellent, sensitive narrator. A tender lesson in how our parents remain out of reach and how a masterful writer knows the retelling of their lives always changes the story.”

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