In the Distance by Hernan Diaz: a book review

In the Distance by Hernan Diaz is as much a coming-of-age story as it is a literary western. It is the story of Håkan, a boy trying to find his place in a foreign country. Like the protagonist, I also emigrated from my home country on the cusp of adulthood, so this story resonated with me. There isn’t another book that comes to mind that has evoked in me the feelings associated with being foreign—especially the occasional loneliness of that state—as precisely and as intensely as In the Distance by Hernan Diaz. And though our adventures could not be more different, Håkan’s and my own story contain this truth: sometimes, the journeys we take alone contain important lessons.

Håkan’s story begins in 1850, when his father, a poor and struggling farmer in Sweden, sends him and his brother to the US hoping that they will find a better life there. Soon before embarking on the ship that was meant to take them to New York, the boys lose each other and Håkan ends up alone on a ship traveling to San Francisco.

Having no money, no companions, and no knowledge of English, but believing that his brother, Linus, must have made it to New York, Håkan sets off on a cross-country journey motivated by a single desire: to find his brother. He encounters various characters along the way. In the hostility of the desert, some become enemies, and some friends, but ultimately, Håkan is always alone.

Having no money, no companions, and no English, but believing that his brother, Linus, must have made it to New York, Håkan sets off on a cross-country journey motivated by a single desire: to find his brother. He encounters various characters along the way. In the hostility of the desert, some become enemies, and some friends, but ultimately, Håkan is always alone.

It is in this space—both the physical space of the American West and the vast mental space of solitude—that Håkan grows up.

And what Díaz achieves through the character of Håkan is to materialize in sharp contrast something we all know: growing up can be a solitary journey. No matter how many people are around to nurture us as we grow, the lessons that pave the way from childhood to adulthood are often ones we must face and integrate alone. We wouldn’t learn them otherwise.

Håkan’s solitude is exacerbated by his foreignness. Diaz writes, “after thousands of nights under those same stars, he woke up as many thousands of mornings under that same sun and trudged for as many thousands of days under the same sky, always feeling out of place.” The essence of Håkan’s experiences might mirror those of anyone who has ever emigrated to a foreign land, even those of us who do so with the privilege of choosing to emigrate for adventure, rather than necessity. It was easy for me to relate to this boy who is acutely aware of how alone he is in this new country, and how foreign he is.

What makes Håkan’s journey even more challenging is that he barely speaks any English at the beginning of the novel. Through sheer skill, Díaz is nonetheless able to keep us very close to the mind of Håkan. “To him,” Diaz writes, “English was still a mudslide of runny, slushy sounds that did not exist in his mother tongue—r, th, sh, and some particularly gelatinous vowels. Frawder thur prueless rare shur per thurst. Mirtler freckling thow. Gold freys yawder far cration. Crewl fry rackler friend thur. No shemling keal rearand for fear under shall an frick. Folger rich shermane furl hearst when pearsh thurlow larshes your morse claws. Clushes ream glown roven thurm shalter shirt.” People can’t even pronounce his name, so they nickname him “the hawk.” Lacking English, it’s almost as if he lacks his own identity in the American West. The result is that we can sense how alone Håkan feels from the very beginning of his story.

Reading this, I’m reminded that one of the greatest gifts of my life has been the opportunity to be multilingual: I am a native Spanish speaker, who learned English as a child and later German. And yet, when I lived in the United States, and then in Germany, it was the language differences (not my appearance or cultural understanding) that most marked me as a foreigner. Even after years of living in Germany, my accent—that distinct marker of place—always set me apart.

And in reverse, the time I’ve spent “in other languages” means that I’m sometimes out of place in my own language. Similarly, there’s a moment when Håkan meets a Swedish-speaker and is surprised to find that he “did not feel more confident or safe speaking in his native tongue.” In Germany, I noticed that the better my German became, the less fluid my Spanish and English became. Over time, the constant movement between those three languages has meant that I speak all three very well, yet none of them perfectly. I always feel like a visitor in each of those languages, never fully at home in any of them—not even in my own native Spanish, which has suffered from my immersion in an English-speaking community. Even in Spain (where I live now) or in Guatemala (where I’m from), people remark on the unplaceable accent that now marks my Spanish. I am a foreigner in my own land, as the cliché goes.

Still, I would not trade the experiences I’ve had as an emigrant for the comforts of having never left home (of course, my own experience pales in comparison to Håkan’s). And yet, after meeting this character, I am left wondering: how can the emigrant ever feel at home in his adopted land?

After all his years in the West, Håkan always felt that “anyone he met, including children, had, in his eyes, more right to be in that land than he did.” Towards the end of the novel, we see how foreign Håkan still feels. “That land—its beast and plants—had fed him…and yet nothing—not the countless footsteps taken or the knowledge acquired, not the adversaries bested or the friends made, not the love felt or the bloodshed—had made it his.” He was always just a guest.

That is the price we pay when we emigrate. And yet, I believe that it is in that feeling of isolation, in the moments of feeling alone, that we can discover who we are. How do you face hardships when you can only rely on yourself? How do you find ways to connect with others when you can’t speak their language? How does the mind speak when it is the only voice you hear? Discovering these things is the most valuable reward of traveling at some point in life, especially alone. And after such a journey we can ask: can the emigrant ever return home? Or must we, more than anyone else, create our sense of home within ourselves?

What is also remarkable about this novel is that Diaz asks these questions not only through Håkan’s experiences but also through imagery, which is perhaps the novel’s clearest strength. Diaz’s descriptions of the landscape of the American West reflect the inner landscape of Håkan’s mindset almost perfectly. We feel the monotony of Håkan’s existence through the monotony of the vast desert. “A year and an instant are equivalent in a monotonous life,” writes Díaz of Håkan’s life. Perhaps during the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us can empathize with this feeling. During the year of social distancing, working from home alone, I have felt the oppressive boredom of days passing, each one the same as the last. This glimpse into Håkan’s life, however minuscule, informs our appreciation of him. And he teaches us the necessity of living in the exact present moment. That is all he has.

Another powerful image is that of Håkan heading east while other immigrants and Americans are moving west en masse during the Gold Rush. By moving Håkan against the tide, Díaz is further asserting his character’s state of disconnect, and this only increases our admiration for him. Anybody who refuses to follow a trend will be lonely at times. It requires a strong mind to follow one’s own path with integrity.

All this Diaz achieves through masterful use of language. Through simple, yet lyrical phrases, he pulls us into a dreamscape that is beautiful, not despite its harshness, but because of it. It leaves us in awe of how a person can survive with his humanity intact even in the face of the worst hardship.

So, go get yourself a copy of In the Distance by Hernan Díaz (preferably at your local bookstore) and let me know what you thought about the book in the comments.