Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts by Josie Shapiro

In my late teens, I discovered running. My body was not made for running, but my heart and mind were hooked. I loved the sense of freedom and accomplishment, the intoxicating runner’s high. I have vivid memories of running along the river Rhône in Lyon; the Thames in London; the beautiful beaches of my hometown, Auckland. I close my eyes and I’m right back there, running again — I can even see what I was wearing, what the weather was like, who I passed as I plodded along.

Unfortunately, I stopped running when I was pregnant with my first child and I’ve never quite been able to get back on the horse. Last year, a large disc herniation in my lower back sealed my fate: it’s walking from here on out.

Or is it?

Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts by local New Zealand author Josie Shapiro is a love story about running. For the novel’s protagonist, Mickey Bloom, running is community, self-care, grit. It’s pain but it’s also what lies beyond pain: strength.

I didn’t know this novel was about running when I requested it from the library. I saw it recommended by a fellow reader somewhere on social media and I added it to my hold list. I love requesting books without reading the synopsis so it’s a surprise when they arrive. Living on the edge, baby!

Anyway — I didn’t know it was about running, or that it was by a local author. So you can imagine my surprise and delight when I read the first page.

“The Race. Thick sea fog rolls in before sunrise. The water isn’t far away, but it is as though it isn’t there at all. I close my eyes for a moment, and I hear it, the slapping of the tide against the rock wall. I watch the other competitors move through the whiteness, coming in and out of focus. Some jog around, warming their muscles, hyped up with anticipation and fear. I can almost smell it, bitter and sweet. Legs kick knees high; brightly coloured sneakers squeak on tarmac. My own legs quiver with the chill of a spring morning. I bounce, once, twice. My feet, clad in the lucky pink socks, feel like dead weights; I’m unsure in this moment if I can make it even one kilometre. How to make it through forty-two? Well, the hay is in the barn now.”

Mickey Bloom is about to run a marathon, and not just any marathon — the Auckland marathon, which has always been a fanciful dream of mine. Imagine running a marathon! Well, thanks to this novel, I could imagine it — every painful, endearing detail. With one important caveat; Mickey Bloom isn’t just running a marathon. She’s racing it.

And so the novel starts, quick like the starting gun. It builds pace fast, weaving between flashbacks of Mickey’s youth and the present-day race. We meet young Mickey and her dream of running in the Olympics and get glimpses of present Mickey as she veers through the streets of Auckland. We know so much has happened between her youth and this moment, this race. But what? That’s why I stayed up night after night, telling myself ‘just one more page’. I was hooked, racing through Mickey’s life and falling back in love with running all over again, but from the comfort of my own bed.

Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts got under my skin and into my heart, and I know what I’ll be asking my physio next time I see her: do you think, with time and persistence, I might be able to run again?

I think you’ll enjoy this book even if you don’t like running, as it’s also a novel about having a childhood dream and letting it go, then picking it back up again in later life and wondering — what if? It’s about second chances and new perspectives, lessons hard won and races you’re yet to enter. Plus, if you’re also from Auckland, it’s a love story about this beautiful city of ours. Highly recommend.