Ron McLarty has joined the ranks of writers of the quirky hero with The Memory of Running. His hero, Smithy Ide, is in the grand tradition of Ignatius J. Reilly of A Confederacy of Dunces and Quoyle of The Shipping News. What these gentlemen have in common is their lumpen-loser looks, their outsider status and their general befuddlement about the way the world works and their place in it. Smithy rises above them because of his self-effacing nature, his great capacity for love, his inability to show it and his endless willingness to forgive.

Smithy is a 279-pound, hard-drinking, chain-smoking, 43-year-old misfit who works in a G.I. Joe factory putting arms and legs on the action heroes. (How did McLarty come up with that?) He is also the most beguiling anti-hero to come into view in a long, long time. McLarty, an award-winning actor and playwright best known for his many appearances on TV in Law & Order, Sex and the City, The Practice, and Judging Amy, has added another star to his creative crown with this novel.

The first sentence of the book is: "My parents' Ford station wagon hit a concrete divider on U.S. 95 outside Biddeford, Maine, in August 1990." This tragic accident eventually claims both their lives. It is on the day of their funeral that Smithy finds a letter to his father about Bethany, his beloved and deeply troubled sister, stating that, "Bethany Ide, 51, died from complications of exposure... and she has since that time been in the Los Angeles Morgue West." Beautiful Bethany, given to taking off her clothes in public places, holding impossible poses for long periods of time, responding to voices that only she can hear, and disappearing for no known reason. This time, she has been gone for many years and now Smithy knows that she died destitute and alone. When he reads the letter, he is drunk, grief-stricken and, despite a house full of people, he is alone. He goes out to the garage to smoke and have another drink and spies his old Raleigh bicycle. He sits on it, flat tires and all, wheels it to the end of the driveway--and--Smithy doesn’t know it yet, but he is going to ride a bicycle from Maine to Los Angeles to claim his sister's remains.

On the road he meets the good, the bad, and the really bad. He frequently calls Norma, the Ides' across-the-street neighbor, confined to a wheelchair for years, and always in love with him. He has never acknowledged nor returned her ardor, but he starts to count on her friendship during his travels. Their conversations are sweet and revelatory. McLarty has done a superb job of showing us who Smithy is and who he is becoming. It's a wonderful story told with great poignancy and humor. --Valerie Ryan

From Publishers Weekly
Smithy Ide is a really nice guy. But he's also an overweight, friendless, womanless, hard-drinking, 43-year-old self-professed loser with a breast fetish and a dead-end job, given to stammering "I just don't know" in life's confusing moments. When Smithy's entire family dies, he embarks on a transcontinental bicycle trip to recover his sister's body and rediscover what it means to live. Along the way, he flashes back to his past and the hardships of his beloved sister's schizophrenia, while his dejection encourages strangers to share their life stories. The road redeems the innocent Smithy: he loses weight; rescues a child from a blizzard; rebuffs the advances of a nubile, "apple-breasted" co-cyclist after seeing a vision of his dead sister; and nurtures a telephone romance with a paraplegic family friend as he processes his rocky past. McLarty, a playwright and television actor, propels the plot with glib mayhem—including three tragic car accidents in 31 pages and a death by lightning bolt—and a lot of bighearted and warm but faintly mournful humor. It's a funny, poignant, slightly gawky debut that aims, like its protagonist, to please—and usually does. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Meet Smithy Ide, the hero (or, if you prefer, anti-hero) of Ron McLarty's first novel, The Memory of Running. Smithy is 43 years old, 279 pounds and single. He drinks too much and smokes too much. Beyond his work as a factory supervisor, where he inspects action-figure parts to make sure that the legs aren't where the arms should be and vice versa, Smithy's life is pretty much devoid of ambition -- that is, until his parents die in a car accident. This Big Bang in Smithy's life sets both the novel and him in motion.The novels chapters alternate between Smithy's present and past. In the present, he oversees his parents' double funeral and, while inside their house, finds a letter from the Los Angeles Department of Health revealing that his older sister, Bethany, who disappeared 20 years ago, is dead. Her remains, however, are being held until someone claims them. Drunk and severely out of shape, Smithy hops onto his old Raleigh bicycle, keeps pedaling, and thus embarks on a cross-country journey from East Providence, R.I., to Los Angeles.In the flashback chapters, Bethany is still alive, but she is hearing voices and disappearing for stretches at a time, sometimes taking off her clothes in public and standing stock-still until a family member comes to retrieve her. Young Smithy adores his sister, and the Ides spend a good deal of their time either tracking down or watching over Bethany. But the voices in her head are clearly winning, and we know it's only a matter of time before she's gone for good. And so the novel progresses: The closer Bethany gets to disappearing for the last time, the closer Smithy in the present gets to Los Angeles.The story of how The Memory of Running came to be published is legendary. McLarty wrote the novel in the 1980s, but no publisher would even consider it; the audiotape company for which McLarty worked as a voice actor eventually released it as a book-on-tape; Stephen King heard the tape and wrote an article headlined "The Best Book You Can't Read" for Entertainment Weekly; a bidding war ensued; and McLarty, who has also sold film rights, became a wealthy man. More power to him, I say. But now that the book is no longer "The Best Book You Can't Read" -- it has front-table display at my local store -- how good is it?McLarty clearly cares for Smithy Ide and his sister, so there's a beating heart at the core of the novel. But the book is not without its faults. The weakest parts take place in the present. Smithy's trip across the country on a bicycle quickly suffers the pitfalls of such stories by becoming episodic. Town after town, Smithy meets one madcap character after another -- a ranting priest in Rhode Island who confesses his sins; a nutty 89-year-old artist in Washington Square Park who keeps calling Smithy "fat boy"; a doctor in Indiana who thinks Smithy is trying to exploit a man dying of AIDS. This one-damned-thing-after-another plot's problems are that each episode lacks a larger purpose and the structure becomes predictable. Since any one of these scenes could easily be excised without affecting the novel as a whole, the question becomes, are the scenes entertaining in and of themselves? For many readers they will be, if only for their sheer lunacy and invention, but I rarely believed the characters in them. E.M. Forster rightly said that flat characters are at their best when they are comic, but even flat comic characters need to be credible. The minor characters aren't the only credibility problem here. Smithy gets shot, he crashes his bicycle at 65 miles per hour, a pick-up truck hits him, and yet he keeps on going. For a character who otherwise resembles Everyman, Smithy defies all laws of physiology. There's no attempt to explain his superhuman resilience when, in truth, the bike ride alone probably would have killed the poor guy, given his general health.The strongest sections are those in the past when Smithy and his family must deal with the haunted Bethany. This story has more of a significant arc, more purpose, more depth, and McLarty renders a number of genuinely heartbreaking moments -- such as when Bethany takes off all her clothes on a snowy and gray day, stands on one of the girders of a bridge and freezes into one of her poses. "Bethany told me," Smithy recalls, "that if she could stand so even her heart didn't beat against her chest, everything, everywhere, would be all right." As a rowing crew from Brown University passes underneath, Bethany falls from the girder and back-flops into the polluted Providence River. McLarty's attention to details in these scenes is so precise that the reader is brought fully into the moment, unlike the scenes in present-time, where he often sacrifices precision for wackiness.Despite these complaints, the novel will doubtless find a wide audience, in large part because Smithy Ide is a character readers will root for. They'll root for him because Ron McLarty clearly loves him. My only hope for McLarty's next novel is that all of his characters, small and large, earn that love.Reviewed by John McNally Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
McLarty, a veteran Hollywood actor, first published Memory as an audiobook. After Stephen King sang its praises in Entertainment Weekly as “The Best Book You Can’t Read,” Viking purchased it for $2 million. Critics disagree about whether it was worth the price. While some found the larger-than-life situations to be refreshingly original and an insightful comment on modern society’s shortcomings, others saw them as contrived or just plain unbelievable. Several also cited the novel’s structure and pacing (alternating chapters on Smithy’s journey with those on his family’s troubled past) as distracting and unnecessarily complex. Smithy, too, was at turns engaging and irritating, though he’ll definitely make you forget your own problems for a while.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Wally Lamb
Riders who hop onto the back of Smithy Ide’s bike and ride America with him will cherish the journey.

Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly
This is a book that can do more than walk; it has a chance to be a breakout bestseller.

Book Description
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.

About the Author
Ron McLarty is an award-winning actor and playwright best known for his appearances on television series, including Law & Order, Sex and the City, The Practice, and Judging Amy. He has appeared in films and on the stage, where he has directed many of his own plays.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"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, especially Smithy's own, he's a loser. Then, within the span of one week, his beloved parents are killed in a car crash, and Smithy learns that his emotionally troubled, long-lost sister, Bethany, has turned up in a morgue in Los Angeles. Unmoored by the loss of his entire family - Smithy had always hoped Bethany might return - he rolls down the driveway of his parents' house on his old Raleigh bicycle into an epic journey that will take him clear across the country." As Smithy pedals across America - through New York City, St. Louis, Denver, and Phoenix, to name a few - he encounters humanity at its best and worst and begins to remember an early life that too many beers have blotted out. The baseball games, the home-cooked meals, the soothing presence of his salt-of-the-earth parents; none of it could transform the dark truth of his sister's madness.

FROM THE CRITICS

John McNally - The Washington Post

… the novel will doubtless find a wide audience, in large part because Smithy Ide is a character readers will root for. They'll root for him because Ron McLarty clearly loves him. My only hope for McLarty's next novel is that all of his characters, small and large, earn that love.

Publishers Weekly

Smithy Ide is a really nice guy. But he's also an overweight, friendless, womanless, hard-drinking, 43-year-old self-professed loser with a breast fetish and a dead-end job, given to stammering "I just don't know" in life's confusing moments. When Smithy's entire family dies, he embarks on a transcontinental bicycle trip to recover his sister's body and rediscover what it means to live. Along the way, he flashes back to his past and the hardships of his beloved sister's schizophrenia, while his dejection encourages strangers to share their life stories. The road redeems the innocent Smithy: he loses weight; rescues a child from a blizzard; rebuffs the advances of a nubile, "apple-breasted" co-cyclist after seeing a vision of his dead sister; and nurtures a telephone romance with a paraplegic family friend as he processes his rocky past. McLarty, a playwright and television actor, propels the plot with glib mayhem-including three tragic car accidents in 31 pages and a death by lightning bolt-and a lot of bighearted and warm but faintly mournful humor. It's a funny, poignant, slightly gawky debut that aims, like its protagonist, to please-and usually does. Agent, Jeff Kleinman at Graybill & English. (Jan. 3) Forecast: Stephen King hailed this as "the best book you can't read" (it was an audiobook only) in a now-famous 2003 Entertainment Weekly column; a 15-city tour and McLarty's certain stage presence should make plenty of folks sit up and take notice. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Stuck without a publisher for this first novel, actor McLarty did an audio original with Recorded Books that Stephen King raved about in Entertainment Weekly. But how many people know that it was actually librarian Tia Maggio (Middleburg PL, VA) who brought the book to the attention of agent Jeff Kleinman? Maggio fell in love with the tape, used it in a book group (some listeners cried), and even got the author to come and read from the manuscript. "The characters are all so real," she explains of the book's appeal. Eventually, the book was sold to Viking for $2 million, with a Warner's deal and the sale of rights to 12 countries quickly following. Not bad for the gentle tale of washed-up Smithy Ide, who takes an impulsive bike ride across America to search for his sister. A 15-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews