โ[Paula] Saunders skillfully illuminates how time heals certain wounds while deepening others. . . .ย A mediation of the violence of American ambition.โโThe New York Times Book Review
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE
โA deeply involving portrait of the American postwar familyโ (Jennifer Egan) about sibling rivalry, dark secrets, and a young girlโs struggle with freedom and artistic desire
In the years after World War II, the bleak yet beautiful plains of South Dakota still embody all the contradictionsโthe ruggedness and the promiseโof the old frontier. This is a place where you can eat strawberries from wild vines, where lightning reveals a boundless horizon, where descendants of white settlers and native Indians continueย to collide, and where, for most, there are limited options.
Renรฉ shares a home, a family, and a passion for dance with her older brother, Leon. Yet for all they have in common, their lives are on remarkably different paths. In contrast to Renรฉ, a born spitfire, Leon is a gentle soul. The only boy in their ballet class, Leon silently endures often brutal teasing. Meanwhile, Renรฉ excels at everything she touches, basking in the delighted gaze of their father, whom Leon seems to disappoint no matter how hard he tries.
As the years pass, Renรฉ and Leonโs parents fight with increasing frequencyโand ferocity. Their fatherโa cattle brokerโspends more time on the road, his sporadic homecomings both yearned for and dreaded by the children. And as Renรฉ and Leon grow up, they grow apart. They grasp whatever they can to stay afloatโa word of praise, a grandmotherโs outstretched hand, the seductive attention of a strangerโas Renรฉ works to save herself, crossing the border into a larger, more hopeful world, while Leon embarks on a path of despair and self-destruction.
Tender, searing, and unforgettable, The Distance Home is a profoundly American story spanning decadesโa tale of haves and have-nots, of how our ideas of winning and losing, success and failure, lead us inevitably into various problems with empathy and caring for one another. Itโs a portrait of beauty and brutality in which the authorโs compassionate narration allows us to sympathize, in turn, with everyone involved.
โA riveting family saga for the ages . . . one of the best books Iโve read in years.โโMary Karr
โSaundersโ debut is an exquisite, searing portrait of family and of people coping with whatever life throws at them while trying to keep close to one another.โโBooklist (starred review)