SuitabookAway Running
David Wright Faladé, Luc Bouchard
- Reading
- Read alongside a conversation about whose experiences are centred and whose are overlooked. Pause before the later crisis to ask how friendships, team loyalty and social pressures are changing.
- Themes
- Sport and belonging: Matt and Free join a team of marginalised local teenagers in a Paris suburb and work with its captain to turn the group into winners. The book presents this favourably.
- Race, class and unequal experience: The local teammates face racial and class discrimination that the two North American recruits do not experience in the same way. The narrative draws attention to social injustice and presents the situation as complicated rather than offering a simple solution.
- Privilege and perspective: Matt is tired of following what his wealthy mother wants, while both young men encounter experiences in Paris that differ from their expectations. The contrasting viewpoints invite attention to how background shapes understanding, while the story also gives both protagonists personal pressures.
- Worth knowing
- The book deserves attention for racism, racial and class discrimination, aggressive police attention, and a later violent disaster. It also includes mild romance and an early scene of youthful voyeurism; the extent of detail is unclear.