Running (Brindle & Glass), the first of a projected quartet of novels, unfolds between 1958 and 196 in the fictional steel town of Raysburg, West Virginia, the setting of most of Maillard’s novels. John Dupre, age sixteen, is a student at Raysburg Military Academy, where he strives to be the “perfect Socratic athlete.” John is drawn to and inspired by the idea of running—influenced by his close friend Lyle, for whom running is a “personal religion”—but running does not come naturally to him. He is a wheezy, bookish kid who commits himself to running because it makes him feel alive and brews in him a new sense of possibility. The running seems to externalize his struggle with everything from gender confusion, relationships with girls and family instability to his increasing awareness of the class divisions that permeate 195s culture. John and Lyle run, drink, hitchhike around, read voraciously and philosophize, but it is running that moves John in a new and powerful way, both literally and metaphorically throughout the novel. “It’s you alone in your animal flesh,” he says, “with blood pounding, sweat flowing, cells changing—animal that will die.” Maillard blends visceral writing, bang-on dialogue and uncontrived storytelling to describe John’s struggles and growth on myriad levels. In the quartet series as a whole (called Difficulty at the Beginning), Maillard depicts the turbulent times of 196s North America, stirred up by the Vietnam War, the peace movement, pressure on cultural and sexual boundaries, inherent generation gaps, and drugs.