A story of personal redemption

After two mild disappointments with the last two books I picked it up, I was wary of a third when I picked up "The Memory of Running" from my wife's bookshelf.

Hadn't heard of the book and hadn't heard of the author, Ron McLarty. It was the debut novel of an actor, recommended to Lori by a local bookstore owner. I started in and, for about 75 pages or so, wondered if I'd stick with it. I'm glad I did. Turned out to be an impressive piece of work.

The protagonist, Smithson "Smithy" Ide, is a 43-year-old self-described fat-ass, working a dead-end job in Providence, Rhode Island, and eating and drinking and smoking his way to a flabby 279 pounds. He served without distinction in the Army during Vietnam but got a Purple Heart anyway when he was shot multiple times while taking a leak one night.

His sister, Bethany, a beautiful, vibrant soul and perhaps the only consistently positive force in his life, has recurring symptoms of mental illness, lapsing into dangerous and unpredictable behavior when she hears "the voice."

His parents die within days of each other and before he can even properly mourn them, he learns that his sister also has died. Dental records in California confirm as much.

Spontaneously, and poorly prepared, Smithy finds himself on a cross-country bicycle trip to retrieve his sister's body. The story follows his adventures as he befriends various characters along the way and his misadventures, too, as he's mistaken for a vagrant and a child kidnapper.

His travels are made possible through the unrelenting devotion of the Ides' longtime neighbor, Norma Mulvey, who wires him money. She's four years younger than Smithy and suffered a crippling accident that put her in a wheelchair, but she's self-reliant and still has a thing for him, despite his bad habits, bad diet, thinning hair and hanging gut.

What begins as a lung-burning lark turns into a personal odyssey of self-discovery, as Smithy sheds dozens of pounds and literally becomes a new man in the process of bicycling from coast to coast. McLarty probes the issues of loss and resiliency, of temptation and fidelity, of first impressions and second chances and, most of all, of regret and redemption.

It's a fine book. Not without its flaws, but well worth the investment of time.

P.S. The odometer just turned over again. This is Post No. 600 on Rough and Rede.