Twice a Runner

John L. Parker's "Once A Runner" is the kind of book that serves as a kind of passport into the strange and fascinating world of the committed distance runner. High school and college runners read it and are ecstatic to find that someone has captured the in such riveting and particular detail the various states of body that are familiar only to those who have chosen to embark on the vision quest that the author calls the "Miles of Trials - Trials of Miles."

If you are a distance runner, you "get" Once a Runner, and even if you are a 30-mile-a-week athlete in your second year of competitive running, you can identify with Quentin Cassidy, the protagonist, and his struggle to overcome every obstacle that stands in the way of a full and complete commitment to his chosen task. On the other hand, if you aren't a distance runner, you don't get it; the story just seems like an odd series of vignettes tied together by a somewhat simple-minded plot that occasionally goes off on quirky side trips.

It hasn't hurt the reputation of OAR that it has been out of print and hard to come by. It's the kind of book that should be passed around like Samizdat, creating buzz by challenging the established order and the political orthodoxy, and creating a bond among its readers. For any runner who has harbored secret resentment towards a culture that worships football, and, if it thinks of distance runners at all, considers them to be scrawny jokes, OAR has a message for you: there is world in which you are the hero and the football players are the joke, where hard-won cardiovascular capacity trumps the accidental gift of natural speed, and where humorless authority holds no sway.

"Gaunt is Beautiful" reads Cassidy's t-shirt, and we members of the cult agree.

Now Once a Runner is going back into print. I learned this not from Letsrun.com or any running-related forum, but from, of all places, Slate.com in a review by Marc Tracy:

Speed Reading: Once a Runner, the best novel ever about distance running

Even more surprising than finding a review of this obscure running book on a political Webzine, was find out that Tracy skillfully manages to describe the qualities that have made the book a favorite among the few, and a mystery among the larger population:

"The paradoxical nature of the novel's popularity—it was the most-wanted book that not enough people wanted anymore—suggests an intense but narrow appeal. There's a reason Once a Runner has never managed to find a mainstream audience. It aggrandizes the insular world of running in a way that, with due respect to its new publisher, no nonrunner could possibly relate to. It is written for runners—and to keep nonrunners out. But it also nails the running life like no other novel ever has."


Now Scribner will be publishing the book -- in April -- and you'll be able to buy new copies of OAR on Amazon or, god forbid, off the shelves at Barnes and Noble.

Although Tracy feels conflicted about this, I think it's great, but it does remind me of one of my greatest regrets about OAR, and that is that John L. Parker wasn't able to write the sequel that OAR deserved. There is a sequel, it's called "Again to Carthage," and it describes Quentin Cassidy ten years later, returning to training as he copes with personal losses and intimations of mortality, and, improbably decides to try to make the Olympic team in the marathon.

Authors shouldn't have to live up to the expectations of their readers, and I have no problem with Parker basically writing whatever book he wants to, but the problem with Again to Carthage, is that he's basically written the same book again, only it's somewhat sadder and less fun.

We're encouraged to think that Cassidy has grown-up, but I actually got the opposite feeling. It was natural and welcome that Cassidy was in a world of his own in OAR, that he persevered in the face of a world that cared little for his days and ways. But in Carthage, there's no reconciliation. He still hasn't learned to live in the world, still holds the world responsible for its monumental stupidity and mean-spiritedness.

One of the early fun parts of the sequel, a scene that has major plot implications for the ending, is Cassidy racing alone against a 4x400 relay team of his co-workers. We get it, and we smile! Non-runners don't understand the nature of running fitness, and when they venture into the runner's domain, they look incredibly unprepared for its challenges.

But we've been down that road. When we're older, we realize that we cared way too much about our unique talents and abilities. Being able to run all day is a wonderful ability, deserving of praise, but it isn't all there is. It isn't even a very big part of what we should aspire to in our maturity. Being kind, sharing what we've learned -- these things become more important as the glorious strength of our 20's and 30's fades.

The Cassidy of Carthage doesn't get this. He's still on his vision quest, and in the marathon he has his vision -- it's a vision from his earlier days.

I don't know, I hate to sound like a wet blanket, but I'd like to read the third book -- the one where Cassidy in his 50's learns something new while he's out there running even though he knows he'll never make an Olympic team again.