Between Them audiobook

Most of us will be forgotten in three generations. All our stories and what made us who we are, in most cases even our very names, won't be on anyone's lips or minds. Ford's memoir of his parents serves as an example of what we should all try to leave behind for future generations.Published decades after both Ford's parents died, and now in his 70s, it focuses on memories of his parents. His father, a traveling salesman, he lost a few days after his 16th birthday in 1960. He got two decades more with his mother who died in 1981. This is a wonderfully written memoir. It was a pleasure to read and I can't recommend it highly enough. I've recommended specifically to my mom that she read this memoir because of the parallels in her own life. My mom lost her father as a teenager too in 1961, while her mother lived to be almost 100. Her childhood, as was Ford's, was shadowed by World War II. But like Ford, neither of their fathers served. My grandfather was too young for World War I and too old for World War II. Both went by the name Carroll. Like Ford's parents, my grandparents waited at least a decade before having a child. There was this whole other life before Ford and my mother's sister came into the world. It's normal for people to wait and have their first child into their thirties today, but it wasn't the norm back then. Both my grandparents and Ford's parents were dynamic duos that were fine and having fun without children. Ford, as my mother, felt the loss of never having had a conversation as an adult with their fathers. As Ford, both my mother's parents suffered the loss of a parent at a young age. My Norwegian grandfather lost his father in a coal-mining accident when he was around 19 years old. My Irish-Scottish grandmother lost her mother from an appendicitis when she was three. Both of my grandparents were the youngest. My grandmother had two older sisters and my grandfather was lucky 13 in a brood of mostly sisters. What I share here aren't much more than stats. What Ford does is to share as best he can who his parents were even though he knows it's hard being that even the people that are still here are hard to pen down. What he does is share his memories and family stories as well as trying to fill in some holes. He also makes some guesses while admitting that he'll never really know for sure. Ford reminds us that it's valuable to think about the people that came before us. It's even more valuable to put memories to paper. My niece is twelve and while she isn't much interested in her family's history now, she will be someday. I'm going to make sure she has the story of her father's side of the family. I'm hoping her mother will leave behind her side too. If I don't write it down for her, so many gems will be lost. We stand on the shoulders of those that came before - to not know who they were is a travesty. My niece's middle names are her two maternal great grandmothers. One of which I took care of her last year. I interviewed my grandmother that last year. While her short memory was a bit lax, her memories from decades before were in tact. I know a lot of the family stories, but most of them aren't written down. I'm making sure to start now. My family is a rich source of writing material - I've always known that. But I've always thought of it as a treasure trove for fiction, which it is, but to leave an honest account for someone a hundred years from now in the family to read seems important too. To look at a family tree of names and years and places is one thing, but to have direct quotes and specific story's is quite another. My mom is the keeper of all the family stories from her side. I need to get them all down from her before it's too late. You probably need to do the same.

"La scrittura è un mezzo singolarmente buono per evocare i morti" ( E. Trevi)Un libro ben scritto e di gradevole lettura.Il celebre autore americano Richard Ford ci offre qui una breve opera di taglio biografico/autobiografico sul rapporto coi propri genitori. Quasi un paradigma di famiglia americana del 'profondo Sud' , mentre sullo sfondo scorre la Storia del '900 .Un testo letterario, però, con uno stile fluente e agevolmente fruibile, ma senza farci cogliere quegli spiragli di profondità che si avertono in opere similari poniamo di M. Yourcenar o di Lalla Romano. Tuttavia non si tratta di un libro superficiale né verboso.Figlio di genitori tardivi, il narratore sente di essere "cresciuto pensando che dovevo essere più vecchio, e che 'ero' più vecchio. C'era stata così tanta vita importante 'prima' di me" .Un 'prima' costituito dal ventennio di vita coniugale spensierato. La nascita del figlio cambiò tutto; egli divenne il perno di una quotidianità familiare più completa. Un periodo felice, almeno nel suo vissuto.La morte prematura del padre muta ancora le cose, ma la vita deve continuare. "Potevamo voltarci indietro, e ci sarebbe parso di essere ancora abbastanza vivi, nonostante tutto" ."Come madre e figlio non eravamo fatalisti. Facevamo buon viso e sapevamo che andava bene così" : "quasi tutto se ne va, tranne l'amore" .

Perché amo le autobiografie o i memoir? La risposta la trovo in questo libretto di Ford: i momenti più importanti della vita non vengono quasi notati dagli altri, eppure quando la letteratura o la poesia li traducono in parole assumono aspetti particolari e profondi. E' così che nasce questo ritratto delicato, sfumato, di una coppia di americani qualunque, con una vita normale, forse triste e banale a guardarla da fuori, ma che diventa preziosa testimonianza se sono i propri genitori. Qualcuno potrebbe obiettare che di biografie della propria famiglia e infanzia è piena la letteratura, eppure ogni riflessione in questo piccolo libro diventa la propria, e il modo di ricordare, o meglio, di non ricordare fa emergere il ritratto di persone diverse di quelle che si sono conosciute. In tutto questo l'autore se ne sta in disparte, come in rari casi avviene.

Mr Ford has the rare gift of talking about the most difficult and important things in the most simple way, which hits the nail on the head, every time.This memoir of his parents is loving and moving, a contemplation on lives lived and loved, on mortality and togetherness. He is clear sighted towards his parents, honouring them in the best way. The second part about his mother is one of the most tender and heart felt things I have read in a very long time and it really hit home with me. The way he talks about their life after his father's passing and her own life, how she helped shape him into the man he is today, is as clear as any prose you can read.

I really enjoy Richard Ford's writing style in his fiction, and this was carried over into this short memoir of both his parents. I really enjoyed it, but it was an unusual book. The first half is a memoir of his father, who died when Ford was 16, and the second half a memoir of his mother who lived into early old age. They were written 30 years apart. But more interesting than the structure is that really Ford knows very little about his father's life especially, and a lot of his half is questions, or conjecture (clearly labelled as such) about what his father might have been thinking. There is no written record - no diaries or letters - for Ford to draw on, only some photographs. His mother's story was in fact only a little clearer even though he knew her into adulthood. The members of his family led a relatively quiet and ordinary life, and aside from his father's death (obviously an enormous event) very little happened. I thought at first there wouldn't be enough to sustain even a short book, but there was.

Richard Ford is one of America's great writers. He has a way of answering the question "what is the meaning of life?" in the most direct way possible--by writing about living. "Between Them" is two separate memoirs, one of his mother and one of his father, written 30 years apart. In the memoirs, Ford describes the seeming unextraordinary lives of his parents, which at first blush seems to be a self indulgent exercise but upon further reflection depicts the fairly extraordinary routine of living.Both of Ford's parents were born in Arkansas to fairly humble beginnings. His father, Parker Ford, was working in a grocery when he met his soon to be wife, Ford's mother, Edna. In 1938, Parker became a salesman for the Faultless Company out of Kansa City, selling laundry starch. The job kept him on the road during the week and home only on the week-ends. Parker held the job until his death.Most of Ford's commentary about his father is conjecture and supposition. The memoir was written almost 50 years after Parker's death and it is clear by Ford's descriptions of his father that a great deal of time had gone by and that Parker was not well known to his son. However, that seems to be part of the point. Ford surmises that his relationship with his father was likely different from other children's relationships to their fathers and observes that "I grew up understanding that the view from outside any family, mine included, and the experience of being inside would always be different." Parker Ford had his first heart attack at the age of 43. He lived 12 more years, dying at the age of 55. "I can recognize now that life is short and has inadequacies, that once again it requires crucial avoidances as well as fillings in to be acceptable. Most everything but love goes away." Ford’s mother, Edna, was born to a 14 year old who left Edna's father and ultimately married a significantly younger man (who might have been close in age to Edna). Edna's mother sent her to a Caholic boarding school (Edna and her family were not Catholic) out of concern for her being too proximate to the younger husband. For inexplicable reasons, Edna's mother later took her out of school and advised her to tell people they were sisters. Needless to say, Edna did not have the most conventional upbringing and Parker's mother was never exactly accepting of her. Edna ultimely died of cancer while in her 70s. The best part of the book is the Afterword, where Ford explains his view of life, his parents and why he wrote the memoirs. "I have always admired Auden's poem 'La Musee des Beaux Arts' for its acute wisdom that life's most important moments are often barely noticed by others, if noticed at all...This understanding has been a crucial urge for most of what I've written in fifty years...The fact that lives and deaths go unnoticed has specifically inspired this small book about my parents and set its task. Our parents' lives, even those enfolded in obscurity, offer us our first, strong assurance that human events have consequences."The book is very short and a quick read, with pictures of his parents and his younger self interspersed throughout. The memoirs are consistent with Ford’s uncanny ability to see the extraordinary in the ordinary and expose the richness of everyday life. If you enjoy Richard Ford and are curious about where his amazing perspective originated, you should read this book. Between Them will be released in May of this year. if you like this review, subscribe to www.frombriefstobooks.com for more

Delicato e a tratti commovente memoir sui propri genitori da parte di Richard Ford.Sarà che sono in quella fase della vita in cui sto prendendo coscienza del fatto che i miei genitori stanno invecchiando e un domani non ci saranno più e sarà che mi ritrovo in certe considerazioni sulla vita con i genitori fatte dall'autore, fatto sta che mi è piaciuto molto e mi ha toccato da vicino. I nostri genitori ci legano intimamente , chiusi come siamo nelle nostre vite , a una cosa che non siamo , creando una sorta di " separatezza congiunta " e un utile mistero , per cui anche quando ci troviamo insieme a loro siamo soli . Tra loro , il titolo di questo libro , vuole in parte suggerire che , nascendo , io mi sono letteralmente intromesso tra i miei genitori , occupando un posto virtuale dove sono stato protetto e adorato finché sono vissuti . Ma il titolo vuole anche , in parte , rappresentare la loro inestirpabile singolarità : sia nel matrimonio che nella loro vita di genitori .L'amore , come sempre , è causa di bellezza .

I don't usually read memoirs. Perhaps I have an unreasoning prejudice against them born of some reading experience in my distant past, but, generally, I just don't enjoy them. But I will always make an exception for Richard Ford.Ford has written this short (less than 200 pages) memoir of his parents and of his experience growing up with them. It essentially consists of two long essays written some thirty years apart in time. Both were written after his parents' deaths. The one about his mother was written first, although she was the second one to die. The second one about his father was written many years after his father died in 1960. Ford was only sixteen years old at the time.In the book itself, the essays appear in the order of the deaths, so the one about the father is first, followed by the one about the mother.We learn that Richard was an only child and his arrival was a bit of a surprise for his parents. They had been married for fifteen years when he was born. Apparently, those fifteen years had been happy ones that his parents spent mostly on the road. His father was a traveling salesman for the Faultless Starch Company and his mother went with him as he made his rounds to a number of southern states in his territory.Both his parents were from Arkansas and that remained their home base in their years of travel, but with the expectation of a baby arriving on the scene, they decided to make a move. His father's employer encouraged him to move to a more central location within his territory so that he would be able to spend more time at home. Thus it was that they decided to move to Jackson, Mississippi, a town where they knew virtually no one. It was there that their son was born and where he spent the formative years of his life.I've always felt a connection with Ford because of where he was born and grew up, for I was growing up in that area during much the same period, the '50s and '60s. Our family situations were quite different. My family were farmers and factory workers. His father was the aforementioned traveling salesman and his mother, after Richard's birth, was a stay-at-home mom. But we were both only children and we both grew up as observers, witnessing first our own families and then the larger society. And we both got out when we could.This memoir seems to be Ford's attempt to give his witness of the lives of two ordinary, unremarkable people and perhaps to fix in his own mind his memories of them. Maybe it is his acknowledgement, too, that he wouldn't be the man he is, seventy-two years on, had it not been for them and his experiences as their son. Of course, the truth is he wouldn't be, period, had it not been for them. A child never really experiences what life is like for his/her parents. How indeed can we ever truly understand the inner lives of even the people closest to us? The borders of their minds are closed to us. But Richard Ford, the observer, has put together his memories of actual events with his imagination and supposition of what his parents' lives must have been like, how they responded to events, what they felt. In doing so, he has given us an affectionate, insightful, and altogether tender portrait of two white people born in the South in the early part of the 20th century; two ordinary people who never made headlines or were noticed by the world outside their own circle of friends and family. And yet they managed to produce one extraordinary writer.

SOLO PER FORDISTI SPINTI Ineludibile per comprendere il suo universo poetico.Composto da due parti, nella prima prevale il ricordo del padre (con tratti più epici, forse perché il ricordo si arresta all'infanzia, causa un attacco cardiaco che se lo è portato via), mentre la seconda è dedicata alla madre (con cui c'è stata una più lunga frequentazione, e quindi l'epica stempera nel quotidiano).L'affannarsi a dichiarare di aver avuto "un'infanzia felicissima" narrando nel contempo un vissuto da "bambino in più" (il titolo, Tra loro, è significativo. Non "con", ma un "tra" a metà fra il divisivo e il collante) fa trasparire che forse così non è stato. Quel respiro sospeso, quel trattenere il fiato e accettare (= narrare) gli accadimenti diventano la cifra stilistica della sua narrazione. Uno sguardo quieto, ricchissimo di dettagli per celare un tumulto di emozioni che non è concesso esprimere altrimenti

I simply adore Richard Ford! There's a reason why he is one of the greatest contemporary American writers. His skills to portray the everyday life is remarkable and there is so much truth in his words. Now he gives us the story of his parents - separately, together, with him, the child between them - and he writes with such tenderness and sincere reflection. Imagine him telling you this story face to face, cause that's how it feels. An excellent and joyful read.

Dos vidasCuando iba por la mitad del libro pregunté en twitter si era posible escribir algo sobre los padres que no fuese emotivo. Cuando lo terminé, twiteé que había llorado. Es la tercera vez que me pasa. Las dos anteriores habían sido con Carrere.No soy de subrayar libros, las veces que lo hice cuando volví a leer mis subrayados no entendía bien por qué me había pegado tanto aquella frase. Es fundamental la ola previa que te va llevando a eso, si no son meros aforismos. Bueno, después de mucho tiempo en este libro marqué un par de frases porque sentí que el impulso era irrefrenable.Este libro chiquito que se lee de un par de sentadas cuenta sencillamente dos vidas sencillas, la de los padres del autor. Padres como cualquiera, como los tuyos y los míos. Esas vidas a las que no les queda otra que la épica de la cotidianeidad. Por momentos es muy conmovedor.Es lo primero que leo de Richard Ford, me lo habían recomendado muchísimo. Ahora veo por qué. Tengo en casa "Canadá" y voy a ver si consigo "El periodista deportivo".

It's slight and reads more like two essays than a memoir. That said, it's a compelling read. Ford finds the humanity in both his parents and portrays them with texture and nuance. The tone of slight detachment lends this greater force than a more emotive account would. Another masterful volume from one of the masters of American literature.

Richard Ford's novels are among my favourites, so it was no surprise that the quality of the writing in this memoir of his parents is so high.The book is split in two - with the first half dealing with Ford's father, the second with his mother.The stories inevitably overlap, but both set out to illuminate the lives of parents who do not have anything more remarkable about them than most people's father and mother - but then that's the point.The opening section on Ford's father Parker was written recently, the second about mum Edna, around 30 years ago, five years after her death.They both though deal with how much we can ever understand our parents. For good or ill, they are likely to be the guiding influence on our lives, but can we ever really know them?Ford is an only child, so this is entirely his perspective, with no influence from siblings. And of course he is an important character in the narrative.Parker's death was the potentially more traumatic for Ford. He died when the author was just 16, but then of course the death of the final parent for an only child is also the final loss of that link to the childhood home.There's no milking of any trauma though. This is a sober, subtle and reflective memoir. There's warmth and love, but also an attempt from an adult perspective to try and understand the relationship of the couple with each other and with the author.But in the end there are gaps. The parents have gone; there is no chance of asking them to fill in the blanks. And that for most of us is the story of our relationship with our mothers and fathers.That's what made Between Them so moving and resonant with me, and what left it lingering in my mind long after finishing the final words.