The following version of this novel was sued to create this study guide: Yoon, Paul. Run Me to Earth. New York, Simon and Schuster, 2020.

The novel opens with a brief author’s note discussing the history of the Laotian Civil War and the United States’ involvement in it. The novel opens in a semi-rural area of Laos in the year 1969. Alisak is 17 years old and is an orphan. He is friends with 17-year-old Prany and 16-year-old Noi. Prany and Noi are brother and sister and are also orphans due to the war. Alisak, Prany, and Noi work at a field hospital that used to be a large house owned by a wealthy Frenchman named the Tobacco Captain. The Tobacco Captain fled his home, and his whereabouts are unknown. Alisak, Prany, and Noi are friends with a young doctor named Vang. One day, helicopters arrive to evacuate people from the field hospital. Unfortunately, although Aliska manages to board a helicopter, a military attack prevents any of his friends from boarding in time. Alisak is brought to France, where a wealthy Frenchman named Yves hosts Alisak and other refugees. Yves happens to be the brother of the Tobacco Captain, whose whereabouts are still unknown.

The narrative then shifts ahead to 1974. A woman known as Auntie works covertly to help sneak people out of Laos, which is still in the midst of a civil war. Auntie knows Prany and Vang, as the three of them were in a survivors’ camp years prior. When the camp was raided, Prany and Vang were captured by the Communist Pathet Lao and imprisoned. Auntie uses her contacts to communicate with Prany and Vang and to try to figure out a way of freeing them. Unfortunately, Prany and Vang remain in the prison until 1977, two years after the Pathet Lao win the war and establish a new regime. The Pathet Lao free Prany and Vang and assign them to work on a farm. Instead, Prany and Vang track down a man who tortured them during the early months or years of their imprisonment. The man now owns and operates an inn. Prany and Vang go to the inn and kill the man. Prany then meets with Auntie. He encounters a young woman named Khit. Prany pays Auntie to take Khit out of the country, to safety. Prany decides to stay in Laos to help other people.

The novel then briefly flashes back to the 1960s, before the Tobacco Captain fled his home. He hires Noi to work as a servant at one of his parties, and he speaks vaguely about his reasons for not fleeing the country, as all the other wealthy French people have done. The narrative then shifts ahead to 1994. Khit is now a resident and citizen of the United States, along with her parents. Years ago, an American church sent them money so that they could relocate to the United States. When Prany paid for Khit’s passage out of Laos, he asked her to remember the name Alisak and to find him if possible. In 1994, Khit goes to France and speaks with a French woman named Marta, who knew Alisak when he was in France. Marta says that Alisak now lives in Sa Tuna, Spain, so Khit goes to meet him there. The final chapter takes place in 2018. Alisak is in his mid-sixties and has led a peaceful, stable life in Spain. However, he still has painful memories of the Laotian Civil War, and he still grieves for the deaths of his friends.