Once in a great while, a story comes along that has everything plot, setting, and, most important of all, the kind of characters that sweep readers up and take them on a thrilling, unforgettable ride. Well, get ready for Ron McLartys The Memory of Running because, as Stephen King wrote in Entertainment Weekly Stephen Kings The Pop of King column for Entertainment Weekly, Smithy is an American original, worthy of a place on the shelf just below your Hucks, your Holdens, your Yossarians. Meet Smithson Smithy Ide, an overweight, friendless, chain-smoking, forty-three-year-old drunk who works as a quality control inspector at a toy action-figure factory in Rhode Island. By all accounts, including Smithys own, hes a loser. But when Smithys life of quiet desperation is brutally interrupted by tragedy, he stumbles across his old Raleigh bicycle and impulsively sets off on an epic journey that might give him one last chance to become the person he always wanted to be.
