Read from Thursday, April 14th to Monday, April 18th.
Again to Carthage, by John Parker, Jr. This is a book that appeals to my past as a long-distance runner. In high school, I was a decent runner, and I had great times on the track and cross-country teams. I felt like I was part of a select club that had experienced these long runs and this camaraderie. Parker is able to capture these feelings of an elite runner perfectly. ATC is a sequel to Once a Runner, which I read a year or two ago. While it may not be a critically acclaimed novel, it is still thrilling for the race scenes, and the runner's high he accurately manages to describe.
ATC is the continuing story of Quenton Cassidy, an elite miler in the late 1960's. He went to college in Florida, and he went to the Olympics in the mile, where he won a silver medal. ATC picks up his story ten years or so later. Cassidy is now a lawyer in Palm Beach. He has good friends at the firm, and he is successful. He takes boating trips to the Bahamas and loves to spear-hunt fish. He still runs, but only occasionally, and only for his own fun. On the surface, life is good, but Cassidy knows that something is missing. Then his best friend, Mizner, dies in Vietnam, and his grandfather dies, and shortly after his older cousin is killed in a machine harvester accident. Cassidy has a somewhat mid-life crisis. He takes an extended leave of absence from the law firm, and he moves into a shed behind his grandmother's house in the mountains of North Carolina. Cassidy reconnects with his old coach from OAR, Bruce Denton, a gold-medal winning miler himself. Cassidy reveals his ambitious plan: Make the Olympic team again, but this time in the marathon.
It is crazy of course, but with Denton's help drawing up a rigorous training schedule, Cassidy jumps eagerly back into competitive running. It is what has been missing in his life. His identity was an athlete, and as an athlete he was constantly improving, continuously ascending and moving away from death. Now that he has confronted his own mortality, Cassidy needs to keep improving again. He runs over a hundred miles each week, increasingly getting better and back into his old racing form. He doesn't have his youthful speed, but that isn't necessary in the marathon. Cassidy trains for almost two years, in NC during the summer (once suffering a heat stroke, something that actually happened to me after a race), and Florida in the winter. He struggles through the mental isolation of the training regimen, but he is happy to have his youthfulness back.
Finally, he makes it to the marathon trials in Buffalo. The top three in the race get to be on the U.S. team. However, Cassidy's Olympic dreams are almost derailed as he is accused of doping by the head of the Amateur Athletic Association, J.J. McGruder. He has an affidavit by one of Cassidy's coworkers at the firm saying that he admitted using steroids. Cassidy's friend and fellow attorney Roland shows up though, and defends Cassidy from these ludicrous hearings, and he is allowed to compete. The next few chapters are all about the race, and they are fantastic. Cassidy runs with the lead group most of the way, but at one point while getting water, he is knocked over by some guys believed to be thugs of McGruder. Cassidy recovers from the fall, although he is all banged up and he hit his head. He regains the pace and reels in the runners again. He is allegedly helped up by an old teammate, Jack Nubbins, who helps get him back in the race. Cassidy is hurting real bad by the last few miles, and he cannot catch the lead group, and he thinks he is in fourth, behind Nubbins and two other guys. He starts getting delusional, seeing old friends, some dead, and singing songs in his head. Finally, he finishes and collapses in a medical tent. Later it is revealed to him that he finished third and made the team. Jack Nubbins had been dead for two years. However, in the epilogue, although Cassidy made the team, the year was 1980, and the U.S. boycotted the games in Moscow. But he is still happy, knowing that he did make it, and he was good enough, and he was a runner once again.
This is not the best book for its literary qualities. There are many cliches and it skips around a lot. I did not like the first half of the book at all. It had nothing to do with running, just bad fishing jokes and lawyers on boats. It was not until he started training in the second half that it got better. The race was great, and I liked the idea of Jack Nubbins being just a figment of his imagination. However, I didn't like the plot-line with McGruder that seemed to be thrown in half-haphazardly at the end. It seemed like Parker just needed a bad guy to make it a good story, but he wasn't necessary. Running is about a conflict within oneself, there do not need to be external forces. I love the banter among runners, especially when they tell old stories of teammates, like how they jumped a train. These are the types of stories that I remember from my days as a runner. ATC and OAR are like chicken soup for the runner's soul, and they bring back fond memories. Although I could never be like Cassidy, it still makes me want to get back out in the woods and run some trails. Recommended for the runners out there, but not many other people. Three and a half out of five stars.
Also, it was a strange coincidence that I read the final marathon scene while the Boston Marathon was actually being run.
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