Setting

"The Long-Distance Runner" takes place mostly in Brooklyn, New York, in the childhood neighborhood of Faith Asbury. The story takes place some twenty or more years after her departure from the neighborhood. She now lives in a middle-class white neighborhood. However, Faith takes the train to Brighton Beach and runs along the boardwalk and then into the neighborhood where she spent her childhood. The place has deteriorated, and the residents are now all African Americans. To the crowd who gathers around this forty-two-year-old white jogger, Faith explains: "I used to live here." Crowd members answer back: "Oh yes . . . in the white old days." Since the "white old days," many abandoned houses have been knocked down, vacant lots are littered with discarded furniture and trash, and crime dictates people's behavior on and off the streets. A white woman running through this neighborhood is an anomaly, a person who stands...