There is no lack of sports "comeback" stories, both in real life and in fiction, and certainly everyone likes a comeback story. After the success of Once a Runner, (1) it should come as no surprise that John L. Parker gives us his contribution to comeback literature in Again to Carthage (2007), which returns us to Quenton Cassidy, whom both runners and nonrunners learned to love in Parker's earlier book. While Parker does provide a later prequel (2) to Once a Runner, it is Again to Carthage which gives us a conclusion to Cassidy's career as a runner.

At the end of Once a Runner, Cassidy returns to the track where he experienced his greatest triumph, hoping to open a new and different chapter in his life. Yet, as we discover in Return to Carthage, Cassidy's running journey is not over. There is unfinished business as Cassidy makes one last effort, this time to make the US. Olympic team in the marathon and to be one of the few athletes to run both a mile under four minutes and a marathon under two hours, ten minutes. As with Once a Runner, Again to Carthage is a book about running for runners, as Cassidy gives up the easy Florida life to orchestrate a return to top-level athletics. It recounts in detail Cassidy's workouts, and the miles he runs in preparing for the U.S. Olympic trials, and this is what appeals to readers who are runners. His marathon workouts are different from those of a miler, although once more, Cassidy relies on the wisdom of Olympic 5,000 meter champion Bruce Denton. He returns to Denton's cabin to again live a life of monkish self-imposed isolation in singular pursuit of his goal.

As in Once a Runner, however, Again to Carthage is more than a book about running. It provides insight into the challenges and disappointments of the "comeback," demonstrates insight into both the physical and psychological demands of running, and recognizes that all athletes are ultimately human. Again to Carthage does have its weaknesses. It lacks structural tightness and is sometimes loquacious, and even tendentious, as Cassidy can seem to "philosophize" endlessly. As well, details sometimes get in the way of the book (there is an inordinate amount of time spent on food and cooking). At the same time, the "set pieces" and events of Cassidy's life--his fishing adventures, Mizner's Vietnam experience, Cassidy's return to his grandparents' home, his reconnection with Denton, his renewed relationship with Andrea, and the Olympic trials themselves--provide insight in their totality into Cassidy's sometimes confused ambitions, both as a runner and in life.

The novel begins a little more than a year after the Olympics when Cassidy, having won the silver medal for 1,500 meters, goes to Denton's cabin to reflect on what his future entails, given what he sees as a series of disappointments both in running and in life:

... now that the time had come he found that the girl had actually married someone else...