A truly astonishing novel of the American frontier. There's something timeless about Diaz's prose, both modern in its vertiginous probing of inner spaces and almost classical in its precision and austerity. Totally transporting, In the Distance belongs without a doubt on any list of Great American Novels.
— Nick
EPIC! I just loved it. Loved, loved, loved. In The Distance is a classic western about a Swedish immigrant stranded in California who has to somehow get back to NYC. Through a young boy's eyes time distorts, language confounds, and the world endlessly expands and congeals - a child becomes an adult. An enthralling, disorienting story written by one of the most confident writers working today.
— Greg NA 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.
Hernan Diaz is the author of Borges, Between History and Eternity (Bloomsbury 2012), managing editor of RHM, and associate director of the Hispanic Institute at Columbia University. He lives in New York.