Pheidippides Didn't Die: a novel

by Autumn Konopka

Overview

For Libby, running was the one thing that made everything better. But when her depression hits so hard even running doesn't help, she finds herself hopeless and alone on the edge of the Ben Franklin Bridge. Then there's Mac. Handsome, intelligent, and surprisingly awkward, he has less than twelve weeks to prepare for a marathon he never intended to run. When Libby agrees to help Mac train, neither anticipates just how much one race could change their lives-if they're willing to step off their predetermined paths and chart a new course together. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798889267140
Publisher:	Manuscripts LLC
Publication date:	08/11/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	426
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Autumn Konopka is a writer, runner, and trauma-informed teaching artist. She was the 2016 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. Her poetry chapbook, a chain of paper dolls, was published in 2014 by the Head & the Hand Press (Philadelphia), and her work has been published widely in literary journals. She lives with her family outside of Philadelphia, where she finds joy in coffee, rainbows, reggaetón, and silly t-shirts. This is her first novel. You can find her online at autumnkonopka.com.

Editorial Reviews

2023-12-03
A woman planning to kill herself meets a man who asks her to help him train for a marathon in Konopka’s novel.

In running gear, wearing heavy ankle weights, suicidal Libby seeks a “good spot” on the Ben Franklin Bridge from which to leap. Then a stranger, Mac, chats with her, and she thinks, “I’m not jumping off a bridge tonight after all.” The next day, Mac asks Libby to help him train for a marathon that he’s entered as a tribute to his recently deceased brother, a surgeon and a runner. In a narrative that alternates between their perspectives within the framework of their three-month training period, Libby and Mac progress from friends to lovers as their histories unfold: Libby was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend, her mother died by suicide, and her brother disappeared when she was in high school, where she experienced further sexual trauma and met her belittling husband, from whom she’s recently divorced. Mac also married, but he left his status-conscious wife, who was not thrilled with his job as a tutor, after his brother’s death. As the marathon approaches, a bombshell from Mac’s past threatens to break the pair apart forever. The author writes that she composed this novel “in the midst of a deep, persistent depression”; her depiction of Libby’s childhood sexual abuse and subsequent behavior is particularly powerful, offering many insights into the emotional subjects of suicide and sexual abuse. Konopka also deftly delivers a grown-up love story, delivering enjoyable suspense while conveying the sexy couple’s shaky-start bonding and introducing several memorable and plot-critical secondary characters. While one wishes for more fleshed-out development of some of the characters, it is a testament to the author’s skill that readers crave more details about the engrossing world that she’s created.

A compelling adult romance that captures the complexities of trauma dynamics.

Kirkus Reviews