In the Distance
Hernan Diaz
“Two men escorted Håkan through the empty barroom and led him upstairs to a room adjacent to the woman’s.”
“Two men escorted Håkan through the empty barroom and led him upstairs to a room adjacent to the woman’s.”
“Zumki stops her dad in the middle of the bustling New York street and insists that he tells her the snow lion story again. ”
“The cold water jabbed Suvi’s skin like a thousand sea urchin pricks.”
“We’re in Oscar’s car, which is an old Chevy Cavalier. Greyish blue. There is dog hair everywhere. I sit in the back and stare out the window, watching lights fly by and then just deep, country darkness.”
“From his balcony Nikhil waited and watched the street as hyacinth braiders tied floral knots, rum sellers hauled bags of ice, and the row of elderly typists, who’d seemed elderly to him since he’d been a boy, struck the last notes of their daily work.”
“Ted had been an involved father from the moment of Stella’s birth. He was one of the new generation of men who regularly feed, dress, and bathe their babies”
“I first saw her where the two rivers meet, brown and black, pressing their long, watery bodies together over mud and sand.”
“Now Naomi and Michael were exchanging a series of vows that David was pretty sure were cribbed from a pop song.”
“Mr. Costello was a quiet, balding man with a ready grin. Polite and hush-voiced when he spoke to the Sisters, but loud and full of good humor when he called to people on the street.”
“Joan was drying the last dinner plate, about to go wrap Sadie’s birthday presents, but her husband George took the dishtowel from her hand and replaced it with a glass of red wine.”
“Do you feel something?” says Gérard.
“Elmore Leonard was a famous writer, but this isn’t a story about him. This is a story about my friend Elmore Leonard, who wasn’t a famous writer at all. Oh, he was a writer, my friend Elmore Leonard; he just wasn’t a famous one.”
“That spring, my father got hold of an excavator and widened the pond behind our house.”
“What he couldn’t have imagined, even in his bleakest assessments of the future, was the boredom.”
“Sometimes I think I understand everything else more than I’ll ever understand Leonie.”
“It’s the old story: It’s not you, it’s me. Or, rather, it’s the place we’re at.”
“It’s never about you. Neither attack, nor counterattack. Not the three boys kidnapped, surely dead, or the child murdered in the forest, burned alive.”
Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature
For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience, exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag. Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.