“Independence Day” by Richard Ford (post 3): Frank Bascombe, not psychologically-minded, does not understand son, who may have multiple personality.

It turns out that very little of this 451-page novel is devoted to Frank Bascombe’s encounter with his son, Paul, on Independence Day.

And although it is repeatedly mentioned that 15-year-old Paul sees a psychiatrist, repeatedly named, the psychiatrist never appears in the novel, and Paul’s behavior (shoplifting, assault, self-injury, barking, etc.) is never explained.

Frank Bascombe, the first-person narrator and protagonist, who had previously been a writer, but is now a realtor, is puzzling. He has ever-changing affinities for one woman or another. He feels dissociated from what he says: “hearing yourself talk” (p. 182). And he says, “My greatest human flaw and strength, not surprisingly, is that I can always imagine anything—a marriage, a conversation, a government—as being different from how it is, a trait that might make one top-notch trial lawyer or novelist or realtor, but that also seems to produce a somewhat less than reliable and morally feasible human being” (p. 226).

However, not only can Frank imagine things as being different, but he, himself, is different at different times. This is epitomized by the trivial, but mysterious, appearance and disappearance, of a limp: on page 256, “I’m still inexplicably limping,” and on page 266, “I have finally quit limping.” And as readers of this blog have learned, puzzling inconsistencies and behaviors may be the differences among alternate personalities.

Paul, Frank’s son with inexplicable behavior—who is just like Frank, according to Paul’s mother and Frank’s ex-wife (p. 258)—asks his father:

“ ‘Okay, do you remember when I was pretty little,’ Paul says very seriously, ‘and I used to invent friends? I had some talks with them, and they said things to me, and I’d get pretty involved doing it?’ ” (p. 327).

Paul denies that anything like that is going on now, but Frank is puzzled about why Paul is bringing that up now, and the reader should be, too, because it may mean that Paul really does continue to have such experiences, which would imply multiple personality.

And there are other things about Paul that are left unexplained. At one point he says, “Alias Sibelius” (p. 340). An alias could be the name of an alternate personality. Then it is mentioned that Paul has a memory gap: “He has seen this, almost exactly…yesterday, but offers no sign of remembering” (p. 344). Memory gaps are a cardinal symptom of multiple personality.

Finally, just prior to getting a serious eye injury from getting hit by a baseball, Paul has a mysterious change in handedness when holding the baseball bat: “ ‘Bat left, son, you’re a southpaw, remember?’…He is batting right-handed” (p. 360).

Alternate personalities may differ in handedness. And his right-handed personality may have intentionally caused the injury to his left-handed personality.

Does Richard Ford know these things? Is he leaving clues of multiple personality that will be revealed in a sequel?

But it may be a mistake to think of this as Richard Ford’s novel. It is written by his Paul Bascombe personality, who appears not to know, or even want to know, what things mean psychologically (in regard to multiple personality).

Richard Ford. Independence Day. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.