About this title: McLarty pens the story of Smithson Ide, a 43-year-old, 279-pound supervisor at a GI Joe factory, who begins a cross-country journey on his old Raleigh bicycle to retrieve the body of his beautiful, mentally disturbed sister.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Books
Date Published: 01/2005
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Good, In good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 368 p. Ex-Library expected imperfections. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Books
Date Published: 01/2005
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 368 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: New in new dust jacket. Brand new! No remainder marks. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 368 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Small Edition; Nice clean copy! May have price sticker on cover and minor shelfwear. Overall a very good book! read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004-12-29
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Very Good. First Edition, interior clean, binding tight, DJ shows edgewear; bookstore and price stickers on DJ and front pastedown. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004-12-29
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Like New. Original dust jacket. No rips or marks. Pages are clean and bright. Stamped seal with initials on inside front cover. From a private collection. Minor wear to dust jacket. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: VIKING PRESS
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Good in Good jacket. Type: Hard Cover Type: Ex-Library 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 McLartyâ? ? s The Memory of Running because, as Stephen King wrote in Entertainment Weekly (Stephen Kingâ? ? s â? ? The Pop of Kingâ? column for Entertainment Weekly), â? ? Smithy is an American original, worthy of a ... read more
Description: Good. 0670033634 Fast Shipping. Dust jacket is torn, creased, missing, or otherwise damaged. May have small remainder mark. Customer service is our #1 priority. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: A former library book with the usual identifiers in a protective glossy dust jacket covering. Dust Jacket has some edgewear present. -, Hard Cover, Very Good / Very Good. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: A wonderful copy with some minor edgewear to the cover. Dust Jacket has some edgewear present. -, Hard Cover, Very Good / Very Good. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. may be 1st edition. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 368 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Good in Good jacket. 171-Y-add Books rated "Good" may have some notes, underlining, or highlighting. These books also may contain the previous owner's name, stamp, sticker, or gift inscription, or may be library discards. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780670033638ISBN:0670033634
Description: Good in Good jacket. 169-U Books rated "Good" may have some notes, underlining, or highlighting. These books also may contain the previous owner's name, stamp, sticker, or gift inscription, or may be library discards. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"I can't say how much I loved the main character in this book--and the way McLarty paints the details in his life in such a matter of fact, deadpan unassuming way. The books opens up with an overweight man, named Smitty, who is an alcoholic. His parents are tragically killed in an accident--and he learns his sister's remains have been found in California. Sounds terrible? Well, it is, but it's also not. Smitty takes his bicycle from the garage and rides from Rhode Island to California--encountering the terrible and the good in people. These offbeat encounters reinforce the goodness in people. And as he pedals, he recounts life with his sister, a beautiful teenager who struggled with the voices in her head.(The first of which told her to disrobe at school in the parking lot, which she did). Smitty's tragedy is told in a straight forward way with no apology or emotional overbearance. The result is a truly moving and readable piece of work--where you root for the main character in all his simpleness. I will not lend this book out. . . it's too amazing to not get back! Go buy it. PS There is also a love story--a strange and truly beautiful one."
"This book reached deep into the emotions of ordinary people with extraordinary emotional upheavals. The main character was a hugely misunderstood person and found his way back to being able to love. I wanted to read more about him after the book ended."
"This marvelous coming of age story of a quirky, overweight, friendless, chain-smoking forty three year old drunk will capture your imagination, and sweep you up on a thrilling, unforgettable ride.
Smithy Ide's life completely changes when in the span of one week he loses his parents and discovers his deeply troubled sister's remains need to be claimed in Los Angeles. While drunk and grief stricken he leaves his home in Maine on his old Raleigh bicycle to escape his sorrow and to claim his sister.
On the road, he flashes back to his past, and the pain of the schizophrenia that tortured his sister and discovers the journey offers a way to his redemption. Along the way he rescues a child from a blizzard, rebuffs the advances of an amorous co-cyclist, and nurtures a long distant romance with the wheel chair-bound neighbor from Maine who has adored him for years.
This funny, poignant, slightly gawky debut novel by Ron McLarty has been a particular favorite of mine for a long time. And, to think we would not had this wonderful book if Stephen King hadn't helped it along the way. Mr. McLarty is an award winning actor and playwright who accomplishes what could have been a depressing read into an awe inspiring journey to love and redemption.
Mr. McLarty wrote another book in 2008 titled Traveler which is also a book I highly recommend. He's definitely an author to watch."
"This book was good and somewhat sad but, you know, with a redemptive ending. It's about how a girl's mental illness affects her family's life, especially her brother's. The plot structure is flashbacks to the family's past contrasted with the brother's cross-country journey in the present to see his sister, told in alternating chapters. It definitely makes the list of Great American Cross Country Travel Novels, so if you're the kind of person who enjoys novels about traveling across the U.S.A, you'd probably like this.
The writing style was really original in places. My favorite part was where he talks about rediscovering bananas. I've had that exact feeling about food before, and those lines are a fairly good example of what I mean when I say that his style is original. He has an unusual way of putting things where he's like . . . almost on the edge of intelligible--kind of writing in fragments--it's a _little_ bit like coming across pieces of writing that sound like they're from "Trout Fishing in America" embedded in a much more serious novel--but somehow he pulls it off. It's like risk-taking that works, or even if it doesn't work that well in every instance, it's still more interesting than writing that _doesn't_ take risks. Another example is a part where he says, "Laughter dreams good," unconnected to anything else, and you have to put together how it relates to what came before, which isn't really hard to do, it's just unusual, and I appreciated that. It also comes up in the protagonist's speech: he talks in fragments sometimes and says things that are out of context."
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