Ron McLarty Books In Order

The Memory of Running

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 McLarty’s The Memory of Running because, as Stephen King wrote in Entertainment Weekly Stephen King s ‘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 Smithy s own, he s a loser. But when Smithy s 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. As he pedals across America with stops in New York City, St. Louis, Denver, and Phoenix, to name a few he encounters humanity at its best and worst and adventures that are by turns hilarious, luminous, and extraordinary. Along the way, Smithy falls in love and back into life. McLarty s novel has already received significant attention for its unusual genesis as an audiobook. Now, in a major publishing event, Viking heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction with his stunning debut, The Memory of Running.

Art in America

A funny and heartwarming novel about a down on his luck writer who finally finds success and love Steven Kearney is a bumbling, overweight writer who has produced thousands of pages of novels, plays, and poems not a single one of which has ever been published. After being thrown out of his Manhattan apartment, Kearney is offered a position as playwright in residence for three months at the Creedemore Historical Society in Colorado, who want him to write and direct a historical play about the town. When Kearney arrives, all hell breaks loose. A dispute between an elderly landowner, Ticky Lettgo, and a young man named Red Fields escalates into a battle that pits local ranchers against a fringe anti property group. Town sheriff Petey Meyers, still haunted by the death of his police partner, tries to keep the peace. As the national media descends on the town, the most extreme member of the activist group initiates a diabolical plan that could sabotage everything. Amid all the tumult, Kearney pens a play that brilliantly captures the history of the town. In the process, he realizes he’s too old to keep beating up on himself and finds lasting love. With its lively characters and spellbinding pace, Ron McLarty s new novel is sure to please.

Traveler

The eagerly anticipated follow up to Ron McLarty’s poignant and deep souled debut, The Memory of Running

When Ron McLarty s debut novel, The Memory of Running, appeared, the publishing world sat up and took notice. Now, McLarty is back with another reason to cheer the arrival of his distinctive new voice. Jono Riley is an aging part time actor and bartender trying to make ends meet in Manhattan when he receives a letter from a childhood friend telling him that Marie, the first girl Jono ever loved, had just died in her sleep. As Jono makes the trip back home to the working class neighborhood of East Providence, Rhode Island, McLarty deftly travels between Jono s adolescence in the early 1960s and the present story of his return. Woven throughout are Jono s endearing and funny memories of his coming of age with his three best friends including a series of mysterious shootings that occurred back then, one of which lodged a bullet in Marie s back when she was twelve.

When Jono s girlfriend, a gritty New York City firefighter named Renee, joins him in East Providence, they find themselves drawn into an attempt to find the person responsible for the shootings so long ago. As the surprising truth unravels, Jono is forced to come to terms with a past that is not quite what he remembers, even as he makes new resolutions in the present. Traveler is a fine tuned and riveting novel that will further affirm McLarty s place in American fiction. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content When Ron McLarty’s debut novel, The Memory of Running, appeared, it became clear that this man is a triple threat: actor movies, stage, and TV, playwright and author. Now, with the publication of Traveler, he has beaten sophomore slump with another arresting story of real people, one that will keep you reading until the last page is finished, and then will leave you wondering what’s next for everyone in the novel. Jono Riley is a middle aged bartender and sometime actor just getting by in Manhattan. When he receives a note from a childhood friend telling him that Marie, his first love, has died, he travels back to East Providence, a working class neighborhood of Irish, Italians, and ‘Portagees’ to pay his respects. His trip turns out to be a journey of discovery, told with a writing style that won’t let go of the reader, conversational and revelatory without giving the game away. Valerie Ryan