The writing and character development show a maturity years beyond his 1970s prose. While Racing the Rain has fewer of the lyrical odes to the sport that made Once a Runner immensely quotable, Parker excels at describing physical and emotional feelings at each stage of workouts and races. But his inability to submit to a domineering coach whose methods are clearly sabotaging the team pushes Cassidy out of basketball and to the track, where he exceeds expectations with help from a swamp-dwelling trapper and a former Olympic track star. The book delves nearly as deeply onto the hardwood as it does the track, describing how Cassidy develops the skills that put him on the varsity squad, even as he gradually learns his gift for distance running. As is the case for many runners, Cassidy’s first love is a team sport, basketball. Racing the Rain takes us all the way back to a playground race proving who is the fastest boy in the first grade (Cassidy was the second fastest) and immerses us in a 1950s Florida childhood-complete with sweaty summers hanging out on bikes, atomic war drills, hard church pews, and diving for fish. But that makes the story no less compelling as we watch young Cassidy’s inevitable path past roadblocks and detours to becoming the elite collegian at the center of Parker’s 1978 cult classic Once a Runner. This is a return to the beginning to show the forces that shaped a character into the man we met previously. Parker, Jr., does for his hero Quenton Cassidy what the second Star Wars trilogy did for Anakin Skywalker. Racing the Rain (Scribner, 2015), the new novel from John L.

Once a Runner by John L. Parker Jr.