Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

Run

a Novel
brianreynolds
Dec 25, 2012
As is her forte, Patchett creates an interesting array of characters in Run, gives them extensive backgrounds and brings them to life on the printed page. She lets them breath in an interesting situation that is realistically portrayed and is more or less plausible. Here we have two adopted Afro-American adults in an upper-middle class white family that includes an older humanitarian sibling, a pushy father and an uncle who, as an ailing retired Catholic priest, seems able to perform miracles. Add to that a heroic birth mom, her adopted daughter, plus a ghost and one would think a plot might be wholly unnecessary. Or. One might mourn the lack of it. It is always good to see the good-guys rewarded and the bad-guys chastised or reformed, even when there is little reason for that to happen. Throughout the book I wondered about the title. While a few of the characters are runners or joggers, running does not move anything along. In fact most of it is done on a track—in circles. So maybe the title is exceptionally appropriate: when you run, you build both body and character; you rarely serve much purpose regarding others; you feel good while you are doing it and after you finish; its drama takes place inside of the runner’s mind and consequently it is rarely a spectator sport. In that sense especially Run is quite a good run.