Customer Reviews

The Memory of Running

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Stephen King personally insisted that I read this book (okay, he recommended it to me AND thousands of others in an Entertainment Weekly column) so here I am. His write up was so enthusiastic that I couldn't resist. And I'm glad I didn't.
The Memory of Running is the story of Smithson Ide, your everyday boy next door growing up in New England during the 60's. The story is told in a series of flashbacks and narrated by 40something Smithy.

Smithy's sister Bethany constantly told him to keep running or he'd turn into a fat ass and she wasn't kidding. Smithy has grown from a slender boy who loved to run into an overweight, junk eating, chain-smoking laze-about with little ambition and a great fondness for the television set. He lives a monotonous, shut-in sort of life but has managed to maintain an aura of sweetness and innocence when, as we learn more of his past, he could've easily become jaded and bitter. When his parents tragically die he revisits his past, rekindles a friendship with a long neglected friend and hops on a bicycle in his funeral suit (!) to work through his grief. During his trip from Rhode Island to California he meets all sorts of fascinating people with stories to tell and recounts his very interesting and often heartbreaking past.

The story starts a bit slowly but quickly picks up pace. As it went on I found myself making excuses to stay in the car or take a longer route home so I hear just a few more words. Smithy grew up with an older sister, Bethany, who he, his mom and his pop loved very much. Bethany was beautiful and smart but began to hear "voices" as a young teen. The "voice" makes Bethany do bizarre; out of character, shameful things like strip her clothes in public, tear at her pretty face, stand in odd poses for hours on end and disappear. Smithy spends much of his childhood biking around looking for Bethany and hates Bethany's "voice" though he always continues to love Bethany even when she's cruel.

The story flips between Smithy's current day wonderings where he meets all sorts of folks and has some downright odd encounters and flashes back to his past where he goes into detail about important points in his young life; from dating foibles, to the fateful day when a childhood friend's vibrant personality was forever changed and he details many of Bethany's "episodes" which had a huge impact on his young life. You really get to know these folks in the span of this book and I was sorry to let them go when I finished.

The story it isn't always perfect (some of the dialogue feels unreal and the story shifts are sometimes too abrupt for my liking) but despite the minor quibbles it is one of the most involving things I've read in quite a while and author McLarty's narration is seamlessly performed. Filled with unexpected twists, beautifully detailed settings and a gut wrenching sense of emotional intensity The Memory of Running is a book I'll be revisiting many times.

This is an abridged version of the Stephen King review of this audio cassette (September 19, 2003, publication of this article in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY):

"My gig at EW isn't writing book reviews, but I can still state with a fair degree of certainty that Ron McLarty's THE MEMORY OF RUNNING is the best novel you won't read this year. but you can experience it, and I'm all but positive that you'll thank me for the tip if you do.

"MEMORY is the story of 279-pound Smithson Ide, a smokes-too-much, drinks-too-much, eats-too-much haert attack waiting to happen. I mean, this gy is a mess -- a lovely, addled, mess. And then one day, Smithy finds himself riding across American with his 'fat ass' handing over the seat of his boyhood bycycle. He's on his way from Rhode Island [Ron graduated from Rhode Island College's theatre department!] to LA -- where he aims to retrieve his sister's body from the couty morgue -- and along hte road he meets a parade of colorful characters. Unlike Huck Finn's adventures, Smithy's don't amount to literature, but they are always entertaining and sometimes wildly funny. . . .

[Ron McLarty, "an actor, playwright, and chronic insomniac who scribbled the tale of Smithy Ide in the wee hours of the morning, on a succession of yellow legal pads," could not get his novel published, but, because he worked as a narrator at Recorded Books, he was able to make an audio cassette of his novel, which King read during his long convalescence after he was hit by a car. He is so impressed with this novel that he wrote this essay. He admits, the first couple of chapters drag, but -- with wise editing -- it will definitely improve. To continue King's essay:]

"That THE MEMORY OF RUNNING has found its own little performance stage is a miracle. I hope it won't be a wasted miracle. What I hope is that you'll order a copy and experience it for yourself; I hope, in fact, that EW readers will inundate Recorded Books with orders for Smithy (Smithie?) Ide's adventures. Let's make a little history here, what do you say? If that happens, the book probably will be published. . . . No, it's hot literature (please remember I said that), but it's bighearted and as satisfying as one of your mom's home-cooked Sunday dinners.

"So why not ride across America with Smithy and root for him as he loses weight, falls in love, and rediscovers life? You'll be striking a low for the good old American novel. More important, you'll do the stuff good novels are supposed to make you do -- laugh a little, cry a little, maybe ride (or jog) an extra time around the block in order to find out what happens next. You'll also discover a fine American voice . . . and actually get to hear it talking.

"Do I want some of the credit if this nice thing happens?

"You know I do.

"Tell 'em Steve sent you."

Just after this article was published, on October 6, 2003, on the online version of VARIETY magainze (the entertainment industry's professional magazine), this was published:

"Warner Bros. will pay high six against seven figures for screen rights to the Ron McLarty novel 'The Memory of Running.' Two weeks ago the book received a column endorsement from Stephen King, leading to a $2 million Viking Penguin deal. McLarty will write the script.

"All this for a book McLarty wrote in 1988 about a 43-year-old, 279-pound assembly line supervisor who grieves the car crash death of his parents by getting on a Raleigh bicycle in his funeral suit and pedaling cross-country."

Thanks, Steve. Ya done good!

I've never heard of Ron McLarty before I read this book, unlike others. Sorry I missed him even though I probably saw him on t.v. more than once.

At any rate, THE MEMORY OF RUNNING is a book I'm glad I didn't miss. I got it because it has a great cover and, yes, sometimes I do pick a book by its cover. Admit it - you do too. And the title was great as well. A slow start, but once I got into it, I didn't want to put it down. I would wake up at 3 a.m. and decide to read for a few minutes and this is something I rarely do with a book. But I did. More than once.

Ron McLarty has put together a great story. Compare it to whatever you want, it's not like other things I've read recently. Maybe because I read mostly female authors and literary fiction, it was different, but maybe because it's far from a formula novel and right up there with one that will stay with you for a long time.

This book started off promising. All the characters were quirky which made learning about them both funny and interesting.

However, the book fell flat about 3/4's of the way thorough..

The main character spends the entire book on a journey, but he doesn't change or grow emotionally (except for a little at the end). I wanted him to finally take a stand for himself.

Accused of incest, child molestation, robbery .. having a gun in his face .. none of this ever evoked any passion from him. It was all so anti-climactic, that I finally got tired of him. I figured any interesting story surrounding him would only result in a very uninteresting response from him.

Wheelchair bound Norma: At first I felt sorry for her. But every time her character spoke, it was a downer. She was written with too many emotional issues. I started to dread her phone calls.

Sister Bethany: This was the only character who changed throughout the story. As Bethany got progressively creepier, I started to feel anxious with every new passage that included her.

The thing is, everyone was just so awful..

The sister's doctors, the Count (though funny, he was mostly inappropriate), the police were mean to him, his old war buddy ended up badly, the truck driver had a tragic story .. it got to be stifling. I wanted someone uplifting to come along.

This book could have been really good.
There were plenty of great observations and experiences along the way through the book.

I would sum it up this way:
It was like going on an interesting adventure with a really dull friend. You'd go again, but you'd wanna go with someone else..

This novel is an elegant, unpretentious, but disarming story about Smithy Ide's redemption. When the story begins he is a person who has for the most part stopped participating in life - fat, alcoholic, heavy smoker, and no self-esteem (but oddly not at all bitter). After both of his parents die on a motor vehicle accident he is trying to settle their affairs. One night, while tremendously drunk, he finds his old Raleigh bicycle in his parent's garage and by accident he rolls of on a journey that will take him across the entire United States.

Every other chapter is a flashback where we learn about Smithy's difficult past, including caring for his nearly always heart-breaking schizophrenic sister (who had a habit of running off and getting in trouble) and his being severely wounded in the Viet Nam War. During the present tense chapters we follow Smithy as he pedals cross country, eats fruit, drops his bad habits, his job, and ultimately his alienation. His redemption comes to fruition in a number of ways: his examination of why he went from being a thin "runner" (as a child he ran, never walked, everywhere he went) who was an active participant in life to an obese, unhealthy, self-loathing drunk; his cross country healing journey; his reading of a couple of cheesy but inspiring paperbacks; his encounters with various characters along the way - all of whom Smithy helps (and in turn they help Smithy); his "closure" regarding his sister; and his ultimately finding love that was there all along. Sound corny? Well, in a sense it is - but this is an affecting and fortifying story.

Smithy is a simple person who seems to be nearly empty. He reminds me a bit of "Chance" from Jerzy Kosinski's Being There - although Smithy is a more intelligent than Chance. All the characters he meets just open up to him. As he sheds pounds and bad habits he seems to shed the weight of his past.

I would suggest that the bike riding readers that enjoyed *The Memory of Running* also read *Heft On Wheels* by Mike Magnuson. This is a non-fiction account of a forty-ish, overweight, drinking, smoking individual who starts taking his cycling seriously and changes his life. It is, however, a much different story - Mike's change is an active process on his part whereas Smithy's change just sort of fortuitously rolls over him. Never the less the two books go together nicely.

This is one of those books that you look forward to reading. Last weekend while I was reading it with the radio on (NPR's West Coast Live) I heard the author being interviewed - talk about serendipity. The author's story of how the book came to be published is in itself fascinating, and I imagine that this book will become inconceivably successful and will be made into a popular movie.

"My parents' Ford wagon hit a concrete divider on U.S. 95 outside Biddeford, Maine, in August 1990...In 1990, I weighed 279 pounds." So begins the debut novel of Ron McLarty, an award-winning actor and playwright. THE MEMORY OF RUNNING takes us into the world of Smithson "Smithy" Ide, a 43-year-old, overweight, chain-smoking alcoholic who works in a factory in Rhode Island supervising the placement of limbs on SEAL Sam action figures. Smithy's parents have just been in a terrible car accident; a few days later, they both die on the same day in separate hospitals. On the day of their joint funeral, Smithy receives a letter from California, informing him that his psychologically damaged long-lost sister, Bethany, has just turned up in a Venice Beach morgue. Mourning the loss of his entire nuclear family, Smithy sets out on a spontaneous cross-country bicycle trip, heading to California to seek closure after 25 years of questions.

THE MEMORY OF RUNNING chronicles Smithy's adventures across the country, from Rhode Island to California, over the course of about two months. Following the image of his sister across mountains and deserts, Smithy travels 50 or 60 miles a day. Along the way, he is placed in the role of hero more than once. He leaves the cigarettes and alcohol behind, turning instead to bananas; he reflects on his past; he rekindles old relationships; he saves lives--including his own. Most importantly, he learns to look at himself in an entirely new way--and he is endearingly surprised at what he sees. His trip is cleansing; it's a chance to start his life anew.

Smithy meets a variety of characters throughout his journey, each one tenderly and completely developed by McLarty. From Carl, the dying homosexual, to an 89-year-old woman who paints birds on sidewalks, to Chris, the needy young daycare owner, the people Smithy meets along the way are richly textured and engrossing. McLarty's characters are sympathetic and humane. We meet Mom and Pop and Bethany only in flashbacks, but they too seem so real. Smithy's father, in fact, reminded me so much of how my grandfather was that it brought me to tears.

Smithy himself is completely unforgettable; McLarty gives voice to him with honesty and unconscious humor. He is heartbreaking and sweet, rough-edged and luminous, flawed and completely loveable. It's impossible not to get caught up in his adventures.

At one point in the novel, Smithy says, "...I had read until I fell asleep almost every night...and I read fast, too. Good books that often I would hate to finish because they took me into their lives and let me out of mine, for a while anyway." THE MEMORY OF RUNNING was just such a book for me. I read the book in one day and was completely drawn into Smithy's life--a flawed life, yes: a life full of regret, but also a life full of beauty and redemption. THE MEMORY OF RUNNING is a stunning debut, laugh-out-loud funny and touching, and it gets my highest recommendation.

I have to say that I really liked this book, despite some of the flaws that other reviewers have pointed out. On the negative side, as others have noted, the diaglogue seems quite unnatural at times. This was most evident in the unrealistic quality of the converstations between the main character, Smithy, and Norma. Yet Smithy's heart comes through so covincingly you can't help but to believe in him.

Also on the positive side, the book effectively portrays the "other victims" of mental illness, quietly illustrating the suffering endured by Smithy and his parents as they lovingly struggle with Bethany's illness.

The cast of characters that Smithy encounters on his odyssey are remarkebly well-developed and interesting, considering their brief appearances in the book. Again, though, the dialogue is not always smooth. The book is not perfect, but it doesn't have to be. It is full of heart, and well-worth reading.

In the genre of unusual characters who strike off on an unknown journey, this is one of the best. Great writing, wonderful thinking, superb characters, and superlative pacing make this one that you don't want to put down, but also want to sip one quirky chapter at a time. McLarty doesn't even let an idea get stale, but always has a surprise around every corner. The alternating chapters of Smithy Ide's past life from his upbringing and relationship with parents and beautiful sister, to the present journey from Rhode Island to California is handled surprising well for a method that commonly distracts. It doesn't here, as the alternations between past and present compliment each other very well. You come to cheer for Smithy and the characters in his life, as you recognize parts of your life and begin comparing what happens to him vs. what you've had happen in your life. This is an extremely good book, worthy of awards, and hopefully is the beginning of a long succession of books from Mr. McLarty.

This excellent novel reminded me of The Lovely Bones, although it's completely different. Both start with death, with the protagonist working through their family and themselves dealing with it, then closure at the end of the story; however, The Lovely Bones' protagonist is a dead 14 year old. The Memory Of Running's protagonist is a chain-smoking, forty-three year old alcoholic with no life:

"...people tended to form quick opinions of me when I stood there fat and drunk and cigarette-stained in front of them. Even reasonable people go for an immediate response. Drunk. Fat. A smoky-burned aroma."

He rides across America on a bicycle, trying to come to terms with his life: his insane sister, dead parents, regrets, and how he got where he is. It's a painful ride at first (physically and emotionally), but his telling of his past and the people he meets on his journey helps him survive the journey. I'm making it sound sappy, but it isn't. The guy is a little nuts, but he has a great story to tell.

The author writes well, making you feel not only for the main character, but everyone he writes about. He hits home sometimes:

"You have to learn to look at someone you truly adore through eyes that really aren't your own. It's as if a person has to become another person altogether to be able to take a hard look. Good people protect people they love, even if that means pretending that everything is okay."

Or:

"...I was a loner who wished not to be alone. It's something I have thought about and thought about, and I now feel that at any given time there are a lot of lonely loners out there. We just don't understand the process of making some friends. The complicated format of friendship. It's not easy."

Yeah, people who know me can see why those struck home, but don't let my admiration dissuade you: this is a funny, touching novel. It isn't a work of literature with a capital "L"; it's a good novel. It'll make you laugh, might make you cry, make you empathetic for the characters, and reminiscent about your past and life, giving you something to think about, although not in a deep way. You'll smile when you put the book down after reading a chapter or two. He tells a good story.

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty is the best book I've read in a very, very long time. Actually, I listened to the book on the suggestion of a friend and am happy I did (the author narrated the audio book version). McLarty's story of the journey of Smithson Ide is a roller-coaster ride that comes full circle in the end. If possible, I highly suggest that interested readers get their hands on the audio version of this book, as McLarty gives voice to the characters in such a way that really captures their essence the way that only the author could provide.