In these ten exquisite stories, first published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1987 and now reissued as a Grove Press paperback, Richard Ford mines literary gold from the wind-scrubbed landscape of the American West—and from the guarded hopes and gnawing loneliness of the people who live there: a refugee from justice driving across Wyoming with his daughter and an unhappy girlfriend in a stolen, cranberry-colored Mercedes; a boy watching his family dissolve in a night of tragicomic violence; and two men and a woman swapping hard-luck stories in a frontier bar as they try to sweeten their luck. Rock Springs is a masterpiece of taut narration, cleanly chiseled prose, and empathy so generous that it feels like a kind of grace.

理查德•福特，美國當代重要作傢。1944年齣生於密西西比州傑剋遜市。他在密歇根州立大學畢業後曾擔任初中教師，後在華盛頓大學法學院讀瞭一學期，即轉學加州大學厄灣校區攻讀創意寫作碩士學位。福特有輕微的閱讀障礙，但癡迷文學，創作瞭《體育記者》、《獨立日》等五部長篇小說，《石泉城》、《多重罪惡》等三部短篇小說集。

理查德•福特曾為“美國文庫”主編韋爾蒂作品選，為《格蘭塔》雜誌主編多部短篇小說選，在多所大學教授寫作課程。

福特是美國藝術與文學院院士。曾獲得普利策小說奬、美國筆會福剋納小說奬和馬拉默德短篇小說奬、Rea短篇小說奬和法國文學藝術奬。作品已被翻譯成近三十種文字。