REVIEW: In the Distance by Hernan Diaz

This book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize this year (2018). After reading the winner (Less) I would have voted for this instead. While Less was quite good, In the Distance was far more deserving. Its scope, characterization, settings, and uniqueness captured my imagination and left me impressed with Diaz’ talent and abilities.

The story is about the adventures and travels of a young Swedish immigrant, Håkan, to the United States in the mid-1850s. Accidentally separated from his brother in England as they board a ship, he ends up in California alone, assuming his brother got aboard the proper ship for New York.

Alone in a foreign culture and not speaking the language, he decides he must (1) survive (2) make his way to New York to find his brother.

Finding himself in the midst of the Gold Rush era, a reader might be forgiven for thinking he might be reading a Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey novel. Yet this notion is quickly dispelled, for the style, grit, and pathos drives far deeper and darker. Diaz’ brilliant narrative of the frontier, the people (good and bad) that he encounters, the depravity and the grace of humans, and the extreme perseverance of Håkan drives this narrative. I had a hard time putting it down, both because I wondered how Håkan would survive the current turmoil and unable to look away at some of the depravity he encountered.

Creative and unique, while still grounded in the human experiences we all know of (or have experienced), In the Distance is one of the most well-written modern novels I have read. The prose is evocative; the characters are enthralling, and the style and plot are the perfect mesh of historical fiction and myth of the frontier.

The book has won numerous awards: William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, the Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of 2017, a Finalist for the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, a Finalist for the Institute for Immigration Research New American Voices Award, and, as mentioned above, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. I do not know why the Pulitzer committee did not choose this one, but they should have.