Hop in: Richard Ford and Lorrie Moore offer unforgettable summer road trips

Hop in: Richard Ford and Lorrie Moore offer unforgettable summer road trips Enlarge this image Harper Collins Harper Collins Lots of summer books traditionally invite readers on a road trip, but when literary masters like Richard Ford and Lorrie Moore are in the drivers' seats, the only thing we readers can count on is that we'll travel far beyond the range of GPS. Now Ford is bringing the Bascombe saga to an end in Be Mine, a novel that finds Frank, at 74, stepping up to be the caregiver for his 40-something year old son, Paul, who's been diagnosed with ALS, also known as "Lou Gehrig's disease." Throughout his Bascombe books, Ford has always set the particulars of what's going on in Frank's life against a larger American story: This one takes place in the winter of 2020 when a presidential election fractures the land and a pandemic waits in the wings. When I reviewed her 2014 short story collection Bark, I likened her — in her loopy, macabre vision — to Emily Dickinson; Moore's new novel, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, only intensifies that comparison.