Away Running

David Wright · Luc Bouchard

Apr 2016 · Orca Book Publishers

About this ebook

Matt, a white quarterback from Montreal, Quebec, flies to France (without his parents’ permission) to play football and escape family pressure. Freeman, a black football player from San Antonio, Texas, is in Paris on a school trip when he hears about a team playing American football in a rough, low-income suburb called Villeneuve-La-Grande. Matt and Free join 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.

About the author

David Wright is a writer and teacher of writing. He played American football for the Flash of La Courneuve in suburban Paris before returning to Champaign, Illinois, a home base from where he sets out abroad, most recently to Bahia, Brazil, and Benin, West Africa.

Luc Bouchard is an award–winning feature writer for the magazines Elle, Chatelaine, L'Actualité and Reader's Digest Canada. He lives in Montréal, Québec, with his partner and his two daughters.