By Tim Leeds
Havre-area residents have the opportunity to hear a Pulitzer-prize winning author, resident of Montana and the world, at the second of the Heritage Center's celebrity luncheons.
Richard Ford, who won the Pulitzer for his novel "Independence Day," published in 1995, will speak at the luncheon on Oct. 3.
Ford and his wife, Kristina Hensley, have owned homes in several locations in Montana, and now have a home in Chinook. They also have homes in New Orleans and East Booth Bay, Maine.
He has traveled to, and lived in, many parts of the United States and Europe. The settings of his books also range from his homeland in the South, Mississippi, to Mexico, New Jersey and Montana, including Great Falls, Shelby, Cut Bank, and Havre.
"Independence Day" is a sequel to an ealier work, "The Sportswriter," published in 1986. The story, about Frank Bascombe, a man who has left writing fiction to become a sportswriter after the death of his eldest son and a divorce, won Ford a nomination for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Ford himself briefly left writing fiction to sell pieces to Inside Sports.
"Independence Day," which won Ford the PEN/Faulkner Award as well as the Pulitzer, takes up the story of Bascombe on the Fourth of July six years later. He is now a Realtor, and the novel tells of his attempts to relate to his son and his wife, and find normalcy in his life.
Ford has published five novels and three collections of short stories and novellas since he published his first work, "A Piece of My Heart," in 1976.
The luncheon will be held on the third floor of the Heritage Center at noon Oct. 3. Reservations for Ford's talk must be received by Wednesday. To make a reservation, call the Heritage Center at 265-7258, or call 265-6417.
