It took John L. Parker, Jr., 30 years to write Again to Carthage, the sequel to his 1978 novel Once a Runner. The wait for a prequel won’t be nearly as drawn out. Parker’s Racing the Rain will be published by Scribner in July to complete the Once a Runner trilogy.

In Once a Runner, Quenton Cassidy, the novel’s protagonist, is a senior in college on the brink of greatness in the mile. Cassidy returns to racing after a brief retirement in Again to Carthage to tackle the marathon. Racing the Rain examines Cassidy’s youth.

The prequel “captures how a runner is formed, and the endurance, determination, and mindset he must develop to become a champion," according to the publisher. "Racing the Rain is an epic coming-of-age classic about the environments and friendships that shape us all.”

Parker, 67, describes his latest work as encompassing “the process of becoming an athlete.” He spoke to RW about the new book from his place in High Springs, Florida. He wrote half of it while he was in Florida and the other half in Bar Harbor, Maine. The novel takes placce in a fictional town on Florida’s Gold Coast. “It felt a little weird to be up in Maine writing about a story taking place in the subtropics,” he says.

Writing Racing the Rain didn’t take as long as it did to write Again to Carthage, but that doesn’t mean the book came easily. He spent five years scribing his newest novel. “The one thing I’ve noticed as I continue on into decrepitude: Writing is kind of hard work,” Parker says. He wrote Once a Runner in less than a year, but he’s not able to put in marathon writing days as he used to.

The same is true of his running. With bad knees, he can run only every three or four days. He hikes and goes mountain biking when he can’t run.

But his novels keep him in touch with the running world. He hopes this book will keep his readers in touch with that world as well.

“I delved into my own athletic history for this book,” he says of the young character he was writing about. “I relived my early races. I was surprised to discover what I found. I think that might be true for a lot of readers. They’ll find things in the book that they had forgotten [about the sport].”

Plus, they’ll find some familiar faces. There’s no Bruce Denton, but Jerry Mizner and Jack Nubbins, teammates of Cassidy in Once a Runner, make appearances.

Nor are there any 60 x 400 meter workout stories, although the characters do face challenges. “I don’t think you’ll find any horrendous workouts,” Parker says. “But they’re horrendous enough to the guys who are doing them. Cassidy is in junior high and high school, everything is scaled to that timeframe in his life.”

That’s what Parker hopes he was able to capture with his Once a Runner trilogy: Running can teach lessons at any stage in life.

“There’s always universals,” Parker says. “That’s one of the goals: Get at those universal truths.”

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