Running: Difficulty at the Beginning Book 1

"Running" is the first part of a quartet of novels tracing the evolution of middle-class consciousness during the nineteen-fifties and sixties. In it, Keith Maillard has revisited some earlier material and folded it into a piece which is to be know as "Difficulty at the Beginning." This entire concept is interesting enough-and even more so if you've read any of his other novels-and "Running" unspools in a deceptively simple fashion. John Dupre is a military school student who enjoys trying to keep up with his best friend Lyle, who is a talented runner. John seems a low-key kid, academically sure and as socially awkward as most boys his age. Lyle is stronger, more of a leader as well as more of an athlete, and like so many teens of the time, they are eager to take the readings of Jack Kerouac on the actual road. What makes John different is that up until the age of fourteen, John saw himself as a girl, or a boy-girl, as he called it. His mother tried to shelter him but once his father got wind of what was going on, it was the military academy for his son. Obliging John likes the military school, and considers the "boy-girl" thing as a phase. But why does he fall for two barely pubescent girls in a row? This could be interesting. Again, Keith Maillard writes with clarity and grace about Raysburg, West Virginia, the settings of "Gloria" and "The Clarinet Polka." "Running" is novella-length, yet it packs a wealth of themes, ideas, and burgeoning character studies in few pages. Readers familiar with Maillard's work will see the seeds of later novels in "Running." This is an interesting project and one that is worth following through the upcoming novels in the series.

This novel really captures the feel of the fifties in the Midwest, when the perspective was much more that of a small town than a global village. One of the most vivid scenes in the book is when the main character, John Dupre, and his friend Lyle go searching for a Kerouac-style "on the road" adventure, and end up merely hitchhiking to a town in Ohio whose main street can be walked in 5 minutes. It may be a bit early to evaluate this work, because three more volumes are planned. At this point, for me John Dupre is not as interesting a character as Gloria, the title character from one of Maillard's other novels. That novel also meandered pleasantly. "Running" instead lives up to its title in that it is fast paced. It also is written strictly from the point of view of the main character, so that other characters are not drawn as vividly. I look forward to future volumes.

Readers of "Gloria" and "The Clarinet Polka" will be glad to know of this book, the first of a projected quartet--really a single novel being published in four parts. Returning once again to the fictional setting of most of his novels, Raysburg, West Virginia, Maillard traces the development of John Dupre, as he grows into the person he is pretending to be. Maillard is unafraid of what is in the human heart, and he is masterful at communicating emotion--if anything, Maillard's art form must be empathy. He deserves a bigger audience, and perhaps this will garner it for him.