The Memory of Running

Award-winning actor and playwright Ron McLarty is well known for his performances of Recorded Books favorites like A Walk in the Woods and Travels With Charley. What fewer people realize is that he’s also an accomplished author.

In this wonderfully quirky novel McLarty takes readers on a quest to find hope and redemption with an unlikely hero. Smithson Ide is 43 years old and weighs 279 pounds when his parents die in an accident. Lost in memories of childhood, Smithson uncovers his old Raleigh bicycle in the garage and begins a cross-country journey to find his beautiful, but tragically psychotic sister. Keenly aware of how ridiculous he must appear, Smithson nonetheless perseveres through a journey that is hilarious and horrifying. It is a trip, he soon realizes, that might provide his last chance to become the person he has always wanted to be.