The Art of Racing in the Rain

339 Pages·2008·0.56 MB·English

by  Garth Stein

the art
of
racing
in
the rain
a novel
G A R T H S T E I N
For Muggs
“With your mind power,
your determination,
your instinct,
and the experience as well,
you can fly very high.”
—ayrton senna

Contents

Epigraph iii
1
Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be… 1
2
He picked me out of a pile of puppies, a… 9
3
“Very gently. Like there are eggshells on your pedals,” Denny… 13
4
Denny moved me far from the farm in Spangle, to… 15
5
Monkeys have thumbs. 17
6
Her name was Eve, and at first I resented how… 21
7
When it was just Denny and me, he used to… 30
8
One summer Saturday afternoon, after we had spent the
morning… 38
9
A couple of years after we moved into the new… 45
10
Ideally, a driver is a master of all that is… 48
11
When I was locked in the house suddenly and firmly… 51
12
Eve’s condition was elusive and unpredictable. One day she
would… 62
13
They sit in the trees and on the electric wires… 68
14
The clues were all there, I simply hadn’t read them… 73
15
When Denny went away the following week, we went to… 84
16
The weeks tripped by with tremendous haste, as if digging… 88
17
Your car goes where your eyes go. 94
18
In Mongolia, when a dog dies, he is buried high… 98
19
It was hours before Denny returned, and he returned alone. 99
20
I was not privy to much, being a dog. I… 107
21
She made me wear the bumblebee wings she had worn… 111
22
Soon, Labor Day weekend came, and after that, Zoë was… 113
23
Everything they said made sense, but none of it added… 115
24
For the first few weeks of our new arrangement—Denny and… 128
25
In February, the black pit of winter, we went on… 132
26
That year we had a cold spell in each winter… 148
27
Six months came and six months left and Eve was… 158
28
In the morning, Denny didn’t know about Eve, and I… 163
29
For Eve, her death was the end of a painful… 166
30
With experience, a driver adjusts his understanding of how a… 177
31
Zoë insisted on going to school the next day, and… 179
32
I spent most of the day hanging out in the… 187
33
Much of what happened to Denny regarding the custody suit… 195
34
They took him to a small room with a large… 197
35
Hands are the windows to a man’s soul. 201
36
I love very few things more than a nice long… 207
37
The morning after Eve’s funeral, I could barely move. My… 215
38
Because of the criminal charges against Denny, the Twins had… 219
39
There was an occasion that summer when Denny found a… 225
40
Oh, a breath of September! 233
41
The flash and fury of a sprint race are grand. 238
42
How quickly. 240
43
“This is not a conversation I like to have,” Mark… 243
44
The solution had been put to Denny by Mark Fein:… 245
45
Denny paid his account with Mark Fein. Shortly afterward,
Mark… 249
46
It was an especially difficult winter for me. Perhaps it… 252
47
Ayrton Senna did not have to die. 255
48
Separate entrances for cats and dogs. That’s what I remember… 258
49
Days later. A week. Two. I don’t know. After Denny’s… 262
50
The summer of my tenth birthday came along and there… 269