Author(s): Martin Edmond

NZ Poetry

'When the American writer Richard Ford read aloud from his novel Independence Day at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington on the night of March 9th, 2004, there was a moment between the end of his prefatory remarks and the beginning of the reading proper when his body seemed to shift slightly to one side, and upwards, if such a thing can be; a shiver went through him; and his voice, when it came, was higher pitched than it had been and seemed to have a trace, though only a trace, of a whine in it. Richard Ford had moved aside to allow Frank Bascombe to enter. ..'