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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 writing led him to complete ten novels, in addition to his plays but his efforts to interest a publishing house were unsuccessful. After some years, he was able to persuade a small company into producing his novel, The Memory of Running, directly onto tape as an audio book. It is believed to be the first recorded audio book of an unpublished novel. In January 2007 his second novel, Traveler was published. His third novel, Art In America was published in July 2008 to critical acclaim. The Memory of Running was chosen as the 2007 selection for the Reading Across Rhode Island program and nominated for Italy's most prestigious literary award, the Bancarella Prize. His final novel, The Dropper, was published in 2012
He received an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Rhode Island College in Providence in 2007 and the Charles B. Willard Achievement Award in 2005.
He died February 8, 2020, aged 72.
Ron McLarty's website
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How much did your own life experience influence the creation of your
characters and drive the plot of The Memory of Running?
My parents had a car accident while visiting me at a vacation spot in
Maine. I stayed at a motel between my mother's trauma center and my father's
neurological hospital. Between visits, I wrote The Memory of Running as a
play. After their deaths, I expanded it into novel form. Like in all of my
work, I try to explain the world and its affect on me. I have always felt that
writing is a deeply personal thing and not a road to wealth and happiness. In
terms of my characters, although I start from my own experience, I seem to let
my characters go from my control. They wrote their own stories from their own
points of view.
Although Stephen King calls Smithy Ide, "a smokes-too-much,
drinks-too-much, eats-too-much heart attack waiting to happen," he also
posits that your protagonist Smithson Ide, "is an American original, worthy
of a place on the shelf just below your Hucks, your Holdens, and your
Yossarians." What do you think of his impressions?
I appreciate his impressions although I must say that I don't think
Smithy Ide is a shelf lower than Yossarian or Caulfield....
Fran Dorf was born in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1953. As a teenager, she read voraciously, wrote poetry and stories, and began working on a novel at the age of sixteen. She graduated from high school in 1971... (more)
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