From the author of the New York Times bestselling Once a Runner-acclaimed byRunner's World as "the best novel ever written about running"-comes that novel's prequel, the story of a world-class athlete coming of age in the 1950s and '60s on Florida's Gold Coast.
Quenton Cassidy is the skinniest boy in school, and also one of the fastest. Cassidy spends his afternoons exploring his primal surroundings: the local river, the nearby ocean, the lakes, swamps, and forests that dominate the landscape of the Florida everglades. While adventuring, Cassidy befriends Trapper Nelson, an iconoclastic hunter who lives in an isolated compound on the riverbank.
By junior high, Cassidy dreams of becoming a basketball player, but Nelson's influence runs deep and Cassidy begins to view running as a way to interact with the natural world. Warned of Nelson's checkered past, Cassidy dismisses the stories as hearsay, until his town is rocked by the disappearance and apparent murder of a prominent judge and his wife. Cassidy's loyalty to his friend is severely tested just as his opportunity to make his mark as a gifted runner comes to fruition.
Hailed by National Book Award winner Bob Shacochis as a "lovely novel that reminds us that what is most valuable is life is the spirit to accomplish impossible things,"Racing the Rain explores a small town's secrets while vividly capturing the physical endurance, determination, and mindset required of a champion. "A celebration of the purity of the sport" (Fort Worth Star-Telegram), it is an epic coming-of-age classic about the environments and friendships that shape us all.
About the Author
John L. Parker, Jr. has written for Outside, Runner’s World, and numerous other publications. A graduate of the University of Florida’s College of Journalism as well as its College of Law, Parker has been a practicing attorney, a newspaper reporter and columnist, a speechwriter for then Governor Bob Graham, and editorial director of Running Times magazine. The author of Once a Runner, Again to Carthage, and Racing the Rain, he lives in Gainesville, Florida, and Bar Harbor, Maine.
Industry Reviews
Praise for Racing the Rain:
“Dreamlike . . . The Florida imagery is as thick as the air is humid . . . The toughness required [to be a world-class runner] shines through in Cassidy in Racing the Rain as it once did in Once a Runner.” -- The Philadelphia Inquirer
“[A] celebration of the purity of the sport.” -- Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“For a young man or woman, the twenty-first century onslaught against purity and potential offers very few havens, but John L. Parker, Jr.'s lovely novel, Racing the Rain, reminds us that within amateur sports, especially a good foot race, all of us, athletes and spectators alike, might find what is most valuable in any life—the spirit to accomplish impossible things.” -- Bob Shacochis, National Book Award winner and author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
“Much of the intrigue of the book lies in discovering how Cassidy developed into the elite runner he became, when and how his talent revealed itself, and how he came to recognize his extraordinary ability to focus, train, and endure pain with purpose. But Racing the Rain offers myriad other delights, not the least of which is the friendship Cassidy strikes up with a (real life) swamp man named Trapper Nelson . . . [The book is] loaded with elegance and evocative writing. . . . A worthy, compelling, and satifying conclusion to the Quenton Cassidy trilogy.” -- Paste Magazine
“In Racing the Rain, John L. Parker, Jr. not only creates the indomitable Quenton Cassidy, but perfectly captures the world that teaches him to be so enduring. From diving the Atlantic deeps to paddling the intracoastal waterways, young Cassidy develops the metabolism of a champion. Parker shows that the wilds of his beloved Loxahatchee River are just as good a cradle for a miler as the Colorado mountains or the Oregon woods. I was with him all the way.” -- Kenny Moore, former Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated, and 1968 and 1972 Olympic Marathoner
Praise for John L. Parker, Jr.'s Previous Books:
“[Once a Runner is] the best novel about running ever written.” -- Runner's World
“By far the most accurate fictional portrayal of the world of the serious runner . . . a marvelous description of the way it really is.” -- Kenny Moore, Sports Illustrated
“The best piece of running fiction around. Beg, borrow, or buy a copy, and you’ll never need another motivator.” -- David Langlais, Runner's World
“Time has not taken a toll on this gem. . . . Runners will find inspirational passages everywhere that they will want to save.” -- Star Tribune
“Again to Carthage is a worthy sequel, and could make a runner out of a couch potato. . . . Carthage becomes a training manual, a nutrition guide, a love story, and a celebration of friendship based on the shared experience of runners training to the very threshold of what the body can endure.” -- Chicago Sun-Times
