Smithy is an American original worthy of a place on the shelf just below your Hucks your
Holdens your Yossarians. -Stephen King Every so often a novel comes along that captures the
public's imagination with a story that sweeps readers up and takes them on a thrilling
unforgettable ride. Ron McLarty's The Memory of Running is this decade's novel. By all accounts
especially his own Smithson Smithy Ide is a loser. An overweight friendless chain-smoking
forty-three-year-old drunk Smithy's life becomes completely unhinged when he loses his parents
and long-lost sister within the span of one week. Rolling down the driveway of his parents'
house in Rhode Island on his old Raleigh bicycle to escape his grief the emotionally bereft
Smithy embarks on an epic hilarious luminous and extraordinary journey of discovery and
redemption.
