‘The trilogy is now complete’
Bonnie McLellan asks I enjoyed reading about the struggle and determination of Quenton to become a champion athlete, but the murders towards the end of the book interrupted the flow. Why did you include them in the novel?
John L. Parker, Jr. replies I was trying to give readers a sense of what south Florida was like in an earlier era, i.e. a pretty wild and woolly place. For better or worse, those murders are very much a part of the history of Palm Beach County, though in real life they took place a decade earlier. And incidentally, Trapper Nelson was briefly considered a possible suspect, but quickly ruled out. The perpetrators were eventually caught by luring one of them into a drunken confession, very much as described in the
book, though Trapper Nelson was not involved.
David Yoon asks You’ve written about the three life stages of a runner now. Is there a universal truth about running regardless of whether you’re starting out, halfway through or at the tail end of your running career?
John L. Parker, Jr. replies I think people run for lots of different reasons, and that is certainly reflected in the three books. Cassidy starts out in Racing the Rain simply wanting to be a successful athlete, to wear a letter sweater, to be admired by others. He achieves his goals through running, but only after his basketball dreams are thwarted.
Lori Vance asks Did the ex- perience of writing this book change you in any way?
John L. Parker, Jr. replies That’s a difficult thing to judge. It was a real challenge as a writer to put myself inside the head of a five-yearold child. That’s more than a sixty-year gap. So perhaps the biggest change is that I’m much more aware now of my earlier self, the first-grader who claimed to be the fastest kid on the playground, the junior high schooler who couldn’t make the basketball team, the high schooler laying it all on the line and wondering what the future will hold. Writing this book brought all of that back in vivid detail.
Megan Radford asks Trapper Nelson is a somewhat mysterious figure, but largely serves as the moral compass
and emotional heart of this story. Was he based on a real person?
John L. Parker, Jr. replies Trapper Nelson was a real historical person. In real life he was very much as presented in the book, and his camp on the Loxahatchee and his various activities were described as accurately as I could. Trapper arrived in south Florida in the early thirties, along with his half-brother Charlie, and their friend, John Dykas. Charlie did, in fact, shoot Dykas in an argument over money, and was sent to Raiford State Prison for many years.
The relationship between Trapper and Archie San Romani (also a real person), was my invention, as, of course, was his relationship with Cassidy. I myself didn’t know him; Trapper died several years before I arrived in Palm Beach County after graduating law school. I did visit his camp several years after his death.
But yes, Trapper Nelson was real, and you can visit his camp, too. It is now a state park! Nerina Field asks Your passion for running is evident is every word that fills this book. I know you also played basketball, did you feel that you had to inject this in such detail to show the inner turmoil that Cassidy felt so that he would realize that his first love was running? John L. Parker, Jr. replies Cassidy’s dilemma very much reflects the one I faced in my own athletic career, although I didn’t have to abandon basketball until I was in college. It was devastating to me at the time, just as I hope the reader understands that it was for Cassidy.
But sometimes amazing things come from seeming tragedies. Had Cassidy not been forced to give up basketball, he would never have beaten John Walton, never gone to the Olympics, never won a silver medal. Ashley Gagnon asks Will you ever write a book that is NOT about running? John L. Parker, Jr. replies These three books form a trilogy of running novels. The trilogy is now complete.