Unconventional Point of View

Richard Ford has a rather unconventional point of view in his novel, The Sportswriter. The novel is written in a first person point of view; however, Richard Ford is not the narrator. A fictional character named Frank Bascombe is the narrator of the story.

Although this is a fictional story, there are many similarities between Frank Bascombe and Richard Ford. Frank Bascombe, like Ford, was a writer that published a few notable short stories. After this period of writing, both Bascombe and Ford became sportswriters and began to cover write non-fictional articles. These aspects of Frank Bascombe's and Richard Ford's lives are eeriely similar.

The significance of these similarites is Ford's portrayal of himself using a made up character. Ford uses Bascombe to re-examine his past and to appraise the value of the life he has been living. It is possible that Ford is unhappy with parts of his past, and he wants to use Bascombe to, in a sense, relive his life.