Extra Credit- Richard Ford

Richard Ford was a great guest speaker that added funny antics in between and during his readings. He started by saying how much we loved Clemson because of how much we talked about it which is true. He believes that no one has just "one voice" that everyone has different voices in their brains and talked and wrote in their different voices. He starts with a very obscure story called " Reunion" that featured a man named Mack, his wife Beth and the unnamed speaker. The speaker had seen Mack in a train station and was flooded with memories of their previous relationship. Mack and his wife were married but both with wandering eyes, both having younger lovers in different cities. Well the narrator became an interest of the wife but Mack finds them and beats the narrator up. A few years later as they saw each other in the train station, the narrator thinks that Mack is waiting for Beth, but low and behold Beth run off to Europe with a young lover and Mack was waiting on his daughter from boarding school. Both men had a theme of resignation in common. They both commonly resigned in their lives. Mack leaves and the men never see each other again. The second reading was from Richard Ford's newest book "Canada" in which the main character is the son of a failing relationship. The story started off very obscure when he claimed something about his parents breaking laws and killing someone. His mother was foreign, short with dark hair and premature wrinkles on her face. She married a southern boy in the Air Force that was the complete opposite of her. Their parents did not want them to get married, but she was already pregnant. They should have realized that after their first passionate encounter, they should have left each other no matter how they felt. They were stuck at a air force base were no one wanted to get attached to anything because eventually will have have to leave. The mother never invited anyone over and you did everything with only your family. But in the end you cannot blame your life on your parents mistakes. Overall Richard Ford was a great reader, the stories were slow at times, but his humor and tone of reading kept the audience engaged.