THE BUDDY AS ANIMA? REVISITING FRIENDSHIPS BETWEEN MEN IN RICHARD FORD'S THE SPORTSWRITER.

This article explores the construction and deconstruction of male friendship in Richard Ford's novel The Sportswriter. The first part offers an overview of classic fictions of male bonding in U.S. literature, while the second contrasts such idyllic representations with the available empirical evidence on men's friendships, which emphasizes their scarcity and precariousness. So as to reconcile the 'reality' and the 'fiction' of male friendship, part three analyzes Richard Ford's 1986 novel The Sportswriter as a contemporary literary revision of the classic myth of male friendship in U.S. literature. More specifically, the novel will be used to illustrate the effects on male friendship of traditional masculinity, which tends to undermine intimacy between men by dissociating them from emotions and, especially, by promoting male homophobia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]