The distance home : a novel / Paula Saunders.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Saunders, Paula, 1957- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Families--Fiction.

Families.

Siblings--Fiction.

Siblings.

Brothers and sisters.

Father and child--Fiction.

Father and child.

Genre:

Fiction.

Novels.

Domestic fiction.

Physical Description:

292 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Random House, [2018]

Summary:

In the years after World War II, the bleak yet beautiful plains of South Dakota still embody all the contradictions--the ruggedness and the promise--of 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 continue to collide; and where, for most, there are limited options. Rene ́ 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 Rene ́, a born spitfire, Leon is a gentle soul. The only boy in their ballet class, Leon silently endures often brutal teasing. Meanwhile, Rene ́ 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, Rene ́ and Leon's parents fight with increasing frequency--and ferocity. Their father--a cattle broker--spends more time on the road, his sporadic homecomings both yearned for and dreaded by the children. And as Rene ́ and Leon grow up, they grow apart. They grasp whatever they can to stay afloat--a word of praise, a grandmother's outstretched hand, the seductive attention of a stranger--as Rene ́ 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 decades--a 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.

ISBN:

9780525508748

0525508740

OCLC:

1002722482