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    In the Distance
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    In the Distance
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    In the Distance
    Ebook302 pages6 hours

    In the Distance

    By Hernan Diaz

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    About this ebook

    Pulitzer Prize Finalist: “Something like Huckleberry Finn written by Cormac McCarthy: an adventure story as well as a meditation on the meaning of home.”—The Times
     
    Winner of the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
    A     Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year
    Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
     
    A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels East in search of his brother, from whom he was separated in the crowds and chaos during their journey across the sea. Moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing West, he is driven back again and again, meeting naturalists, criminals, religious fanatics, swindlers, Indians, and lawmen—and his exploits turn him into a legend.
    Just as its hero pushes against the tide, this widely acclaimed novel defies genre conventions—and “upends the romance and mythology of America’s Western experience and rugged individualism” (Star Tribune).
     
    “Suspenseful…a memorable immigration narrative, and a canny reinvention of the old-school western.”—Publishers Weekly
     
    “Exquisite: assured, moving, and masterful, as profound and precise an evocation of loneliness as any book I’ve ever read.” —Lauren Groff, National Book Award-nominated author of Florida and Fates and Furies
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateOct 10, 2017
    ISBN9781566894975
    Author

    Hernan Diaz

    Hernan Diaz is the author of Trust. His first novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. A recipient of a Whiting Award and the winner of the William Saroyan International Prize, he has been a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages.

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    Reviews for In the Distance

    4/5

    140 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Gritty and trippy by turns.
    • 5/5
      Diaz is a combination of the powerful story telling of Wallace Stegner and the poetic voice of Cormac McCarthy. I can’t wait to read his next book!
    • 3/5
      reads very much like one of jack london's dog tales.
    • 5/5
      Unlike any story I have read before, I wanted to read it out loud, just for the pleasure of saying the words. Hard to explain but I loved the cadence and the way it made me feel. I read a lot but have never felt this way about a book. Not necessarily the actual story but the way the words simply worked. Remarkable. Thank you for that.
    • 3/5
      There is a popular narrative about the settling of the American West. Streams of settlers set out from the East and made their way in covered wagons to the lands further west in search of a better life. These pioneers built farms, they encountered native peoples under both peaceful and hostile conditions, they panned and mined for the gold of their fever dreams, and they pushed ever forward in the promise of Manifest Destiny. There are variations on this tale, of course, but most variations do not generally veer too far from this imagined story. Hernan Diaz, though, has turned this story on its head in his novel, In the Distance, starting with an immigrant determined to get not from the East to California but from California to New York.Hakan Soderstrom is an old man called The Hawk about whom many legends are told when he sits down on a ship bound for Alaska and tells his story. He and his brother Linus left their parents and their home in Sweden to travel to America. At a stopover in Portsmouth, Linus disappears and speaking no English, Hakan must try to find their boat to America himself. Instead of the one heading for New York that he assumes Linus caught, Hakan ends up on a boat making for San Francisco to land people close to the gold fields. The young boy intends to walk the breadth of the continent to find his brother and protector in New York. Along the way, he meets with a whole host of people, some of whom are willing to help him and others who want to use him for their own ends, but for the largest part of his journey, he is alone, reliant only on himself, what the few kind people he has encountered have taught him, and what nature provides.The novel is written in soaring prose with evocatively described landscapes and echoes of Frankenstein's monster's journey. The Hawk is an epic figure, traveling mainly on foot across empty stretches of a new country and also journeying into the recesses his own soul. This is both a literal and a metaphorical quest for his brother and for home. The hardships that Hakan endures would have felled a lesser man. Diaz captures the emptiness of the land, the solitude, even in company, of the immigrant who cannot communicate in the language of the country, and the loss of the self to constructed myths told by others. Reading this felt like sitting out in the blazing sun for hours with time telescoping in and out, some pages seeming to last for days and others for seconds. It is a book about both existence and nothingness. Not for the reader who wants fast moving plot, but for one who will take the time to sink into the hypnotic maelstrom.
    • 5/5
      Wow. I couldn't put this book down. It tells the story of a Hakan, Swedish man who comes to the California as a teenager and sets out toward New York to find his brother. He travels in the Wild West, usually alone, becoming a legend in the process. The writing is incredibly engaging, even in parts where there are long lulls in the action. As you would expect in a Wild West tale, the landscape is as much of a character as any of the characters, but Diaz pulls that off without ever being trite, especially because Hakan is more comfortable in the places that most other people avoid. The book is ever so slightly surreal, and yet remains plausible even as it grows into an ever taller big fish tale.
    • 5/5
      Book on CD narrated by Peter Berkrot.In the mid-19th century a young teen sets out from Sweden with his older brother to America. Bound for New York, they get separated when changing ships, and Håkan, with no English, mistakenly takes a ship bound for San Francisco. Arriving at the height of the gold rush, and not fully understanding the breadth of the continent he must traverse, he is determined to earn his way East to reconnect with his brother Linus. Along the way he encounters a wide variety of characters – some helpful, many not – and learns to rely upon himself.This is a Western unlike any other I’ve ever read. The “romance” of the West is nowhere to be found here. This is often a barren, dangerous place with few allies and many enemies. In places the novel takes a philosophical turn as Håkan ponders his fate and occasionally despairs of every achieving his goal. Håkan, himself, is the stuff of legend. For one thing, he continues to grow throughout the book, becoming a giant of a man; the stories of his escapades and his legend grow even bigger. The novel covers decades, taking Håkan from age fourteen to “white-haired” old age. I loved the poetic writing though sometimes was frustrated by the lack of clear story arc. Also, occasionally Díaz writes entire passages in Swedish, with little or no translation. I suppose he wanted the reader to feel as lost as his character. A few times in the book, Díaz repeats entire passages verbatim a page or two after first introducing them. I think fans of Jose Saramago would like this book. My F2F book group had a spirited discussion, though most members did not like it. My final verdict: Marvelous writing and a fascinating character.Peter Berkrot narrated the audio version. I did not like his delivery, though I eventually grew used to it. I think I’ll probably re-read this as some point, and I’ll definitely rely on the text version.
    • 5/5
      A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels east in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing west. Driven back again and again, he meets naturalists, criminals, religious fanatics, swindlers, Indians, and lawmen, and his exploits turn him into a legend. Diaz defies the conventions of historical fiction and genre, offering a probing look at the stereotypes that populate our past and a portrait of radical foreignness.
    • 4/5
      Mythic tale of a Swedish immigrant who catches the wrong ship in England and finds himself disembarked in California during the Gold Rush rather than in New York. The novel traces his adventures as he wanders east, running opposite to the flow of westbound settlers.
    • 4/5
      Häkän Söderstrom and his older brother Linus are sent by their Swedish tenant farmer parents to New York via Porstmouth, England. There was only enough money for 2 tickets. Häkän was, and I'm guessing, maybe 14? 13? and Linus 16 or 15? Häkän looks up to his brother and trusts him endlesslyThey make it to Portsmouth, and Linus disappears. One second he's there, the next he's not. After looking and looking, H finally gets on a boat, thinking Linus has embarked to look for him.And he ends up in San Francisco. It's 1849, maybe 1850. And from there, in his desire to travel to NY and find Linus he has many accidental adventures. He makes friends, learns many things, and becomes a legend. He also becomes a bit of a hermit.This book is fascinating but ultimately very sad. What did their parents think? What happens to L and H in the end? H came so close to having a typical life when he met Helen, but it was not to be.In many ways this reminded me of Patrick DeWitt's novels, but it is also original. What an interesting character Diaz created, in a time and place that has been written about so many times--but not like this.Also--amazing cover. Only I kept picking it up upside down.
    • 5/5
      This novel is genre breaking. It is historical fiction in that it is set in and around California during the goldrush. It's a story of one man's courage, determination and will to live. It is also a unique look at the humanity and the drama around a booming goldrush town. I highly recommend that you take this incredible journey with young Hakan Soderstrom (Hawk) from his time as a young boy who left Sweden with his brother and somehow ended up in San Francisco during the goldrush. We follow him on his epic journey through the California desert and back again as he attempts to walk across America in order to find his brother who he lost in New York. This was an amazing book because of its scope, and because of the beautiful prose. Diaz has written a book that is a literary treasure, all lovingly told, and Diaz uses his literary prowess to portray the 19 century American landscape in all iit's beauty and grandeur. The book is stunning in its scope. The old west comes alive under Diaz's capable hand. Highly recommended.