The Memory of Running

The Memory of Running (2004) by Ron McLarty. Smithson Ide was a runner as a child and a young man, but at the age of 43 he has become an overweight drunk. Then his parents die of injuries suffered in a car crash, and a few days later he learns that his long-missing sister Bethany has died of exposure, a street person in Los Angeles. "Smithy" sets out on a cross-country trip by bicycle to claim his sister's body, and along the way finds redemption himself. Grade: B+