The Running Man

Summary of the Story

 

Joseph Davidson is a fourteen year old boy and a very talented artist. One day his neighbor Caroline Leyton asks him to draw a portrait of her mysterious brother, Tom Leyton, a Vietnam veteran who lives with his sister, raising silkworms and hiding from the rest of the world. Because of his secretive behaviour, Tom is usually the subject of rumors and gossip, mostly spread by Joseph’s neighbor Mrs. Mossop, who usually focuses on Tom Leyton’s suspiciously brief teaching career.

 

When Joseph agrees to draw his reclusive neighbor he meets an unfriendly and brooding man who is lost in the cocoon he has created for himself. When Joseph attempts to draw the mysterious Tom Leyton he finds that he cannot properly portray the man without knowing his past and how it has made him who he is.

 

As he is getting to know Tom Leyton, Joseph also has thoughts about his absent father who he has a damaged relationship with and his childhood fear of the Running Man- a local who runs constantly at a frantic pace and who terrified him as a young child. As dreams return about the Running Man, Joseph must not only face his fears and doubts about Tom Leyton and learn about his past but also must face his own relationship with his father and begin to understand the frightening figure of the Running Man.