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The Distance Home is the story of a family - its secrets, betrayals, cruelties and kindnesses - and how our childhoods dictate the adults we become.

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In 1960s rural America two siblings grow up in a place of love and turmoil. Rene is the apple of her father´s eye: an over-achiever, athletic, clever, the best brain in class, and the best dancer in school. Her older brother Leon, doted on by his mother, is shy, a stutterer, but also a brilliant dancer.

Rene and Leon share a talent, but it is a gift their father adores in his daughter, and loathes in his son. These two children may be best friends, but life promises to take them down very different paths . . .

The Distance Home is the story of two children growing up side by side - the one given opportunities the other just misses - and the fall-out in their adult lives. Funny and tragic, both intimate and universal, Paula Saunders´ debut is about how our parents shape the adults we become. It is a hugely moving story of devotion and neglect, impossible to put down - these are characters you will forever press to your heart.

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The Distance Home is a deeply involving portrait of the American postwar family: its promises and disruptions . . . surrounded by a rich, shimmering, sensuous landscape Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad

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Saunders, Paula
Paula Saunders grew up in South Dakota. She is a graduate of the Syracuse University creative writing program, and was awarded a postgraduate Albert Schweitzer Fellowship in the Humanities at the State University of New York at Albany, under then-Schweitzer Chair, Toni Morrison. The Distance Home is her debut novel. She lives in California with her husband. They have two grown daughters.

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