“Would you think he was anybody like you?”
That’s the last line of the story Rock Springs by Richard Ford, in a collection of stories bearing the same name. I read the story and responded, “nope.”
It was probably 1996 or 97, and I had escaped the suburbs of Northern Virginia to the idyllic college town of Clemson. And now, sixteen years later, I’m headed back to Clemson to hear Mr. Ford read. I had to remind myself of the name of the story.
Rock Springs was published in 1988; it’s certainly not the work we’ll hear tonight. I think I might be embarrassed or surprised that I haven’t read anything else by Ford. But I’m not. The world of literature is so vast. And he’s not anybody. Like me.
