Freeman, a black defensive back from San Antonio, Texas, is in Paris on a school trip when he hears about a team playing in a rough, low-income suburb called Villeneuve-La-Grande. Matt and Free join the team, the Diables Rouges, and make friends with the other players, who come from many different ethnic groups. Racial tension erupts into riots in Villeneuve when some of their Muslim teammates get in trouble with the police, and Matt and Free have to decide whether to get involved and face the very real risk of arrest and violence.
Buy the book. The two high school players find themselves teammates on the Diables Rouges, an American football club in the fictional suburb Villeneuve-La-Grande.
This is one last fling before facing the inevitabilities that await them: college, careersโฆ life. For the white boy and the black boy, one Canadian and the other American, their friendship blossoms as they explore the cobbled streets and age-old stones of the City of Light.
When the police harass and arrest some of their Muslim teammates, the North Americans get swept up in the urban uprising that erupts afterwards. When riots broke out in , we both took a plane to witness firsthand the troubles that had ignited in our past home and were spreading across France. The consternation and outrage we encountered and the tales we heard from old teammates told an entirely different story from the one reported in the media.
Away, Running emerged from our experiences. Set against the little-known backdrop of American football in France, the novel uses the riots to dramatize the promise and frustrations of multiculturalism. Press paper , was a New Yorker notable selection and one of the St.
