From the author of the New York Times bestselling Once a Runner, acclaimed by Runner'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. 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", it is an epic coming-of-age classic about the environments and friendships that shape us all.

Again to Carthage is the "breathtaking, pulse-quickening, stunning" sequel to "Once a Runner "that "will have you standing up and cheering, and pulling on your running shoes" ("Chicago Sun-Times"). Originally self-published in 1978, "Once a Runner "became a cult classic, emerging after three decades to become a "New York Times "bestseller. Now, in "Again to Carthage, "hero Quenton Cassidy returns.
The former Olympian has become a successful attorney in south Florida, where his life centers on work, friends, skin diving, and boating trips to the Bahamas. But when he loses his best friend to the Vietnam War and two relatives to life's vicissitudes, Cassidy realizes that an important part of his life was left unfinished. After reconnecting with his friend and former coach Bruce Denton, Cassidy returns to the world of competitive running in a desperate, all-out attempt to make one last Olympic team. Perfectly capturing the intensity, relentlessness, and occasional lunacy of a serious runner's life, "Again to Carthage "is a must-read for runners--and athletes--of all ages, and a novel that will thrill any lover of fiction.

Originally self-published in 1978, "Once a Runner" captures the essence of competitive running--and of athletic competition in general--and has become one of the most beloved sports novels ever published..
Inspired by the author's experience as a collegiate champion, the story focuses on Quenton Cassidy, a competitive runner at fictional Southeastern University whose lifelong dream is to run a four-minute mile. He is less than a second away when the turmoil of the Vietnam War era intrudes into the staid recesses of his school's athletic department. After he becomes involved in an athletes' protest, Cassidy is suspended from his track team. Under the tutelage of his friend and mentor, Bruce Denton, a graduate student and former Olympic gold medalist, Cassidy gives up his scholarship, his girlfriend, and possibly his future to withdraw to a monastic retreat in the countryside and begin training for the race of his life against the greatest miler in history. .
A rare insider's account of the incredibly intense lives of elite distance runners, "Once a Runner" is an inspiring, funny, and spot-on tale of one man's quest to become a champion..