Racing the Rain: A Novel

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Once a Runner€"€œThe best novel ever written about running€ (Runner€s World)€"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€s first foot races are with nature itself: the summer storms that sweep through his subtropical neighborhood. Shirtless, barefoot, and brown as a berry, Cassidy is a skinny, mouthy kid with aspirations to be a great athlete. As he explores his primal surroundings, along the Loxahatchee River and the nearby Atlantic Ocean, he is befriended by Trapper Nelson, €œthe Tarzan of the Loxahatchee,€ a well-known eccentric who lives off the land.

In junior high school, quite by chance, Cassidy discovers an ability to run long distances, but his real dream is to be a basketball star. Still, Cassidy absorbs Nelson€s view of running as a way of relating to and interacting with the natural world. Though he is warned of Nelson€s checkered past, Cassidy dismisses the stories as superstitious gossip, until his small town is stunned by the disappearance 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.

John Parker€s prequel to the New York Times bestseller Once a Runner vividly captures how a runner is formed and the physical endurance, determination, and mindset he develops on the way to becoming a champion. Racing the Rain is an epic coming-of-age classic about the environments and friendships that shape us all.