The Memory of Running

By: Ron McLarty

Narrated by: Ron McLarty

Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Award-winning actor and playwright Ron McLarty is well known for his audiobook performances. What fewer people realize is that he's also an accomplished author. In this wonderfully quirky novel, available exclusively as an audiobook, 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.

In late 2003, in his column in Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King called The Memory of Running "the best novel you won't read this year." This glowing endorsement of the audiobook resulted in Ron McLarty receiving a $2 million two-book deal from Viking Penguin. Also, Warner Brothers has shelled out big bucks for the movie rights to The Memory of Running, for which McLarty will write the script.

©2002 Ron McLarty (P)2002 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"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....What I hope is that you'll order a copy and experience it for yourself....It's bighearted and as satisfying as one of your mom's home-cooked Sunday dinners." (Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly)

Too much detail!!

At some points I felt asleep. I kept reading just because I wanted to keep practicing my english, but the fun was gone long time ago. I liked the last 3h of the book because it got really interesting at that point. I liked that the author was the narrator. My audio credit was wasted here.

Dull dull dull

I don't understand the appeal. After the first hour, nothing seemed to happen. I scrapped this two-thirds through part one. Many words and little plot.

Really, really awful

If this is the best book I won't read this year
as Stephen King refers to it, then conversely, it is the worst book I did read.

I found it tedious, badly narrated, and unremarkable.

Pass.

Just couldn't finish it.

Would you try another book from Ron McLarty and/or Ron McLarty?

Maybe

How could the performance have been better?

Perhaps with an additional narrator or two

Any additional comments?

Really tried to hang with it long enough for the story line to hold my attention. Just about the halfway mark the narrators monotonous voice became a little irritatating. I am sure the second half of the book is more interesting than the first. But I found it to be one of those books that you could put down....that I actually wanted to put down. Maybe I'll try again at a later date.

Are you kidding??

I have heard about this book for a long time, and was looking forward to listening to it. I saved it for a long car ride -- and what a long car ride it turned out to be! This book is so unrelentingly depressing that it turn a beautiful, sunny fall day into a bleek one, indeed. I don't know if this book or its characters ever redeem themselves, but they were just not likable or compelling enough to find out. We gave up after almost three hours. That was more than enough!

The story was self-pitying, the characters pathetic and the performance was equally flat.

The Railwayman, on the other hand, was about something truly grizzly and profoundly heart-sickening, and yet, it was noble and enriching. Heroic, actually. The journey of this story is hard to listen to, at times, but the characters are so noble that I had to bear witness through every page. I feel inspired to be a better person for having heard it. I thought it was so spectacular that I listened to it a second time, so my husband could hear it on a long car ride. When we got to our destination, we stayed in the car, until it ended. (Classic "driveway moment")

Just not what i expected

What would have made The Memory of Running better?

did not like offensive language
lacked enough plot to keep my interest

Has The Memory of Running turned you off from other books in this genre?

no

What about Ron McLarty’s performance did you like?

i thought it was fine

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Memory of Running?

the beach scene involving oral sex and talk of it

Meanering, Boring Story

The main character is simple and unnuanced. I kept yearning for some complexitiy. The narration was fluid and professional, but the story was so boring, I could not make it through the first three chapters.

Redundant

While the overall story line for this book has potential, the author makes it hard to endure with repetitive narration. There is only so many times that a person can hear "my beautiful sister", about how the main character did not visit his neighbor, and about the "stupid things" the main character says, etc. I thought the story could have been told in about half the time and words. I had to force myself to listen to the end, which turned out to be very predictable.

Tedious

I like a slow moving story if it is filled with memorable characters and events. This one, while interesting at times, was too frequently tedious and repetitive. I did manage to finish, but I was just anxious for it to be over. The narration is excellent, however, and done by the author himself. I haven't ever read anything by McLarty, so I don't know how it compares with his other works.

Sad.

The narrator of this first-person novel (the lead character, not the reader) is so hapless and dreary, his family so tragic, that I stopped listening little more than three hours in. Many positive reviews below promise the poor fellow's eventual redemption, but I didn't care to accompany him for several more poignant hours.

I stopped at the point where a priest assumes that the narrator, a Vietnam vet, is homeless and hasn't come to terms with his war service. The maladjusted war vet is to current culture what the dumb, shiftless black was a century ago: a false, offensive stereotype.

I would have stopped anyway. I need redemption -- we all do -- but I found this man's journey more enervating than inspiring.