Taming The Star Runner
Encyclopedia
Taming the Star Runner is a young adult
Young adult literature
Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...

 coming-of-age
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood , and in which character change is thus extremely important...

 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 written by S. E. Hinton
S. E. Hinton
Susan Eloise Hinton is an American author best known for her young adult novel The Outsiders.While still in her teens, Hinton became a household name as the author of The Outsiders, her first and most popular novel, set in Oklahoma in the 1960s. She began writing it in 1965...

, author of The Outsiders
The Outsiders (novel)
The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel based in 1965 by S. E. Hinton, first published in 1967 by Viking Press. Hinton was 15 when she started writing the novel, but did most of the work when she was sixteen and a junior in high school. Hinton was 18 when the book was published...

. Unlike her previous young adult novels, this novel has not been made into a film as of yet.

Context

The novel is the last of her series of novels that take place in and around her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...

 (see Continuity within S.E. Hinton Novels
Continuity within S.E. Hinton Novels
The young adult novels of bestselling author S.E. Hinton -- The Outsiders , That Was Then, This Is Now , Rumble Fish , Tex and Taming the Star Runner -- all contain a number of common threads in locations, characters and themes...

) and the only one of that series written in the third-person perspective.This is also S.E. Hinton's only novel that was not made into a movie. Like her first book, The Outsiders, it is implied at the end of the book that the protagonist is the actual author. In reality, many of Travis' experiences trying to publish his book parallel those of S.E. Hinton's while trying to publish her first book (having to clean up the language, starting a second book before the first is published, being only 16) It could also be that Travis' book is deliberately similar to Hinton's first book, as it is stated that a major plot point of his book is a main character dying in a car accident, similar to Johnny in The Outsiders dying due to injuries sustained in a fire.

Plot introduction

A spirited horse of the title is a type that the main character identifies with towards the end of the novel. It is the story of Travis Harris, a tough sixteen year old child from a big city who must go to live with his paternal uncle after assaulting his stepfather in a fit of rage.

Plot summary

Travis is a tough kid living in a big city. When he comes home to find his stepfather cramming the fireplace with his writings, Travis assaults him with a fireplace poker. As a result, he is sent to live with his paternal uncle, Ken, on his ranch outside of Tulsa. Travis, used to life in the city, soon finds country life to be boring. Formerly the coolest, toughest kid in school, he is now an out-of-place loner, torn between his desire to fit in and his contempt for country living. Even Ken seems too busy for him, between work at his law-firm and his divorce; he is often too busy to even keep food in the house. Travis continues work on his book while maintaining a correspondence with Joe, the only one of his friends to even occasionally write back.

He also meets Casey Kencaide, who runs a riding school on Ken's ranch and is the only one brave enough to ride the Star Runner, a creature who, like Travis, was never meant to be tamed. Soon Travis is working for Casey as a stable boy, and he receives an offer to publish his book. In response he takes a trip into town to celebrate. While in town he gets drunk and is beat up by the bouncer when his true age is discovered. In bad shape, he contacts his uncle to bring him home and reveals his book deal to Ken, a surprise for Ken, as he was unaware that Travis was even fully literate.

For a while life, to Travis, at least seems bearable. Things soon get worse though, as Travis' stepfather refuses to allow the book to be published without his prior approval. Hearing this, Travis has another fit of rage and throws the phone, nearly hitting Ken's wife, Teresa, and their son, Christopher. Teresa, in response to this, and discovering Travis' criminal record, threatens to use his presence in Ken's house to win full custody of Christopher and Ken almost kicks Travis out in his zeal to be with his son. Eventually they make peace after they realize that they both hoped that the other would be the father and son they were looking for. It turns out Travis' father died in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

two months before Travis was born. Ken then agrees to help Travis get his book published, going with him to meet the publisher Ms. Carmichael when she comes to town, and even arranges some publicity with a TV interview at a station owned by a friend of his.

Travis then gets a surprise visit from his friend Joe, who had hitchhiked his way there. Instead of this being a joyous event, Joe reveals that after Travis left, his friends, Joe and the twins, Billy and Mike, had turned to burglary, fencing the goods through a man named Orson. After Joe quit, the twins continued their burglaries, but found a new fence. For this, Orson killed the twins and tried to make Joe help him. Travis and Ken convince Joe that he must return to face trial as an accomplice, and take him to the local police for extradition.

As they return to Ken's ranch, a huge lightning storm strikes and Ken and Travis must go help Casey round up the horses into the barn. As they do this, the Star Runner breaks free of his padlock. Casey and Travis give chase only to have Casey's jeep struck by lightning. Although it is not directly stated, the Star Runner is killed(This is implied from Travis smelling burned flesh).

The book ends as Casey and Travis have recovered from the accident and the temporary hearing loss. Though Casey had previously spurned Travis' romantic overtures, they are now close friends who share a common bond. Travis also realizes that he, like the Star Runner, should never allow himself to be tamed or broken, even when life is at its worst.

External links

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