Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Traveler by Ron McLarty

Traveler by Ron McLarty

Traveler

by Ron McLarty

  • Published:
  • Jan 2007, 288 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Jono Riley is an aging part-time actor and bartender trying to make ends meet in Manhattan when he receives a letter from a childhood friend telling him that Marie, the first girl Jono ever loved, had just died in her sleep. As Jono makes the trip back home to the working-class neighborhood of East Providence, Rhode Island, McLarty deftly travels between Jono’s adolescence in the early 1960s and the present story of his return. Woven throughout are Jono’s endearing and funny memories of his coming of age with his three best friends—including a series of mysterious shootings that occurred back then, one of which lodged a bullet in Marie’s back when she was twelve.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Frequent flashbacks add color to Jono's adult insecurities, and McLarty's prose remains convincing without crossing into treacly turf." - PW.
"Contains too many echoes of films .... including particularly significant debts to Dennis Lehane's Mystic River and the Clint Eastwood adaptation thereof. Still, a lively, big-hearted tale, drenched in gritty working-class ambience." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Jono's bighearted firefighter girlfriend and the many colorful figures from the old neighborhood serve to further enrich this atmospheric tale." - Booklist.

This information about Traveler was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Ron McLarty Author Biography

A native of East Providence, Rhode Island, Ron McLarty was a veteran actor, accomplished playwright, prolific audiobook narrator and acclaimed novelist. He came to New York to become a writer. While pursuing this goal, he became one of television's and film's most recognized faces for his character actor roles. He was a regular on the popular series Spenser: For Hire and appeared on Person of Interest, Rescue Me, The Practice, Law & Order, and Sex and the City.

He also appeared in many films and on the stage, where he directed many of his own plays. He lived in New York City with his actress wife, Kate Skinner.

It was his collaboration with Stephen King that led to his emergence as a published novelist of national repute. Beginning with the early years of his career, McLarty's passion for...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Ron McLarty's Website

Other books by Ron McLarty at BookBrowse
  • The Memory of Running jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.