In exquisite prose that spans generations of Canadian Aganetha Smart’s life, Snyder captures the essence of her protagonist’s spirit, a runner who wins a gold medal for the 800 meter race at the 1928 Olympics in Australia when she is twenty. Now in a rest home at the age of 104, everyone Aganetha has ever loved has gone. Out of nowhere, two visitors arrive: Kaley and Max, a young woman and man claiming to be relatives. Wheeling the elderly woman outside for an outing, the visitors (who are in fact brother and sister) deposit their passenger in a car and drive away. It eventually occurs to Aganetha that these young people have no intention of returning her to the home. Thus begins the emotional journey, the unfolding history of Aganetha Smart, a life marked by victory and notoriety, begun humbly on a farm in Toronto, Canada.

Kaley drives as Max, camera in hand, describes a documentary they are making about Aganetha. The young woman declares that she is a runner as well, hoping to compete in the Olympics herself. While Kaley drives distractedly, hinting at secrets she is not yet willing to share, a ruminating Aganetha drifts in and out:

I creak, my bones not so different from the branches, absorbing light, graying and careful. We are old.”

The appearance of perfection does not interest me. It is the illumination of near-disaster beside which we all teeter, at all times, that interests me.

In an essentially simple life bound by rigid conventions restricting women’s opportunities in a patriarchal society, Aganetha’s indomitable spirit is carved from the heart of a champion, the discipline of a runner and the soul of a woman in tune with the world she inhabits. Deeply private by nature, Aganetha bears her painful burdens without complaint: “Under every layer of pain another layer of recovery lies in wait, the sweet forever surprise of endurance.” Accumulated wisdom born of triumph, tragedy ,and the courage to breach the boundaries of convention, Aganetha Smart may lack social graces, but she leaves footprints on this earth, her mind racing across the fields even when her body no longer can, embracing the present she finds when the destination is reached with Max and Kaley, surrounded by a chorus of loved ones who have gone ahead.