After evaluating all three of these excellent stories, I have determined that the winner of this fiction contest must be “Rock Springs” by Richard Ford. Telling the story of a father on the run from the law, attempting to start a new life for himself and his daughter, “Rock Springs” does a tremendous job of showcasing the unfairness of justice, and the inability for people to truly escape their sins. For its incredible command of character, its thematic richness, and the endlessly compelling prose, “Rock Springs” is the clear winner of this contest.
Ford centers “Rock Springs” around the character of Earl Middleton, easily the most intriguing protagonist among the entries in this contest. Earl is a fairly mundane criminal when it comes down to it; all he did was write some bad checks, and is now on the run from the law. However, this still tears him up inside, as he is a very indecisive character – all he wants to do is care for his little girl from Montana, but is unsure of how to do it. His relationship with his girlfriend Edna is strained, as he does not know what he wants, and is keeps running from the consequences of his actions. Earl’s timidity and nonviolent nature set him apart from many criminal characters we get in fiction; he is a well-meaning dad who just wants to do what is right, but is not sure how to do it.
Most notable in “Rock Springs” is Ford’s command of language and dialogue, providing rich and evocative prose that sucks the reader into the story’s situations. Ford writes with an immediacy and level of detail that is very admirable. From the first sentence – “Edna and I had started down from Kalispell, heading for Tampa-St. Pete where I still had some friends from the old glory days who wouldn’t turn me into the police” – Ford sets up an instantly evocative situation and throws you into Earl’s plight (288). By placing the story in Earl’s first-person perspective, Ford immediately generates empathy with him, and the simple, straightforward language still manages a great deal of poetry.
This command of character and prose allows Ford, in “Rock Springs” to dig up intriguing thematic material about the sins of man and his responsibility towards them. Central to Earl’s character is his inability to face his problems head on, and he often wonders how other people might regard him. At the end of the story, he wonders what people think about him when they run across him on the street – if they know what he did. These existential questions and more fill “Rock Springs” with an existential sense of alienation that is central to the American experience, and which Ford handles with aplomb.
Its material is rich, its characters intriguing, and its central themes about loneliness and identity touch upon universal truths hidden in all of us. For these reasons and more, I am happy to name Richard Ford’s “Rock Springs” as the winner of this fiction contest.
Works Cited
Ford, Richard. “Rock Springs.” Rock Springs. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987. Print.
