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BOOK NEWS Ron McLarty wrote an 800-page novel at age 24. When publishers showed no interest, he wrote another and another. After the third, a novel called “The Memory of Running,” he finally gave up sending manuscripts to publishers. But he kept writing. McLarty went on to finish 44 plays, nine novels and assorted poems without ever publishing a word. He supported himself as an actor through voice-overs, audio books and advertisements. He appeared on Broadway in 1972’s “Moonchildren” and 1991’s “Our Country’s Good,” and on TV in such series as “Spenser: For Hire,” “Cop Rock” and “Sex and the City.” Then last September — after a lonely 35-year literary odyssey in-volving a thoughtful audio book producer, a small-town librarian, and novelists Danielle Steel and Stephen King — Ron McLarty got published at age 56. Top publishers in the industry all placed bids for “The Memory of Running,” roughly 15 years after McLarty wrote it in 1988 and two weeks after King wrote a magazine column in which he called McLarty’s manuscript “the best novel you won’t read this year.” Viking, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., eventually won the auction with a two-book deal for just over $2 million. Warner Bros. has optioned the book as a film, to be directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who turned the third “Harry Potter” novel into a critically acclaimed film. McLarty’s novel, the story of a 42-year-old alcoholic’s quest for redemption on a bicycle trip across America, hits stores this month. And in the author’s mind, there is no parallel with his own late-life turnaround. He was always a writer with a day job. The book is only part of his later-life reversal of fortune. A widower, he met actress Kate Skinner six months before his book was auctioned. They were married in Maine on New Year’s 2004. McLarty’s first break, he said, came in 1997, when Steel insisted that Recorded Books, her audio book publisher, use McLarty, who had recorded a number of her books for other companies. McLarty soon be-friended executive producer Claudia Howard and gave her his manuscript to read. She loved “The Memory of Running” enough to arrange for it to be recorded. A librarian in Mid-dleburg, Va., liked it so much that she invited McLarty to give a reading. When McLarty de-cided two years ago to renew attempts at publishing, agent Jeff Kleinman decided to send out “The Memory of Running,” which had stuck in his mind since listening to it four years earlier. About the same time, McLarty auditioned unsuccessfully for the ABC-TV miniseries “King-dom Hospital,” created by Stephen King, who became a big audio book fan while recuperating from a 1999 car accident. At the audition, King asked an incredulous McLarty whether he was the novelist, Ron McLarty. McLarty rushed to Recorded Books to tell Howard, “‘Send him a copy! Tell him I am THE Ron McLarty,’” he said. Howard sent King the recording and a request for an endorsement. Months later, Howard began reading him an Entertainment Weekly column that Stephen King planned to publish. “‘The Memory of Running’ is the best novel you won’t read this year,” King wrote in the opening sentence. “So why can’t you read it? Because, so far, at least, no publisher will touch it with a 10-foot pole.” King’s column worked like an expertly crafted provocation. Within two weeks of its publication in mid-September 2003, McLarty had his contract. Looking back at the long road to publishing, McLarty, who just finished his 10th novel, has no regrets. “I am not saying that I would not have liked to be successful over the last 30 years, but on the other hand, I like enjoying this now without feeling I deserve it,” he says. “Twenty-six-year-olds don’t say wow.”
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